JOIN US'India has dealt with global crisis extremely well'
“India has done extraordinarily well in weathering a global crisis which was the most severe in 70 years,” WB Country Director Roberto Zagha told PTI here.
“India is fortunate to have had a macro economic management that it has,” he said.
Noting that the global crisis was of unprecedented proportions and nature, he said that India handled it remarkably well on fiscal and monetary fronts as also on issues relating to contraction in credit.
Centre in control
“WB is very much appreciative of how India tackled the global crisis. We are very impressed. The Indian government has a situation very well in hand in the short term and the 11th Plan gives a very good perspective for the medium term,” Zagha said.
On WB’s short-term goals for the country, he said essentially it would be on how best it can support the country’s priorities as set out in the 11th Plan. Zagha said if India continued to grow the way it’s been growing, it would be an industrialised country in terms of the per capita income level in about 25 years which “means that need for the bank to extend loan to India will no longer be there”.
Valued partner
World Bank had already become a small but valued partner in India, Zagha said adding while India had grown to become a trillion dollar economy, “we , that is the World Bank have not grown that fast”.
On the global recession, Zagha said it had already bottomed out but would take sometime before “we get out of the bottom”. “It will be what you can say the ‘U’ recovery”, he added.
A former Senior Adviser to the WB Vice-President, Zagha also said the bank was making a claim with its shareholders to increase its capita.
Early loan release
The Karnataka government on Friday pushed for early clearance of loans to the tune of $1.175 billion that it has sought from the World Bank to take up various projects in the state.
In a meeting with WB Country Director Roberto Zagha here, Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa noted that the World Bank had sanctioned a loan of $857 million for six state projects.
“Out of this amount, $475 million is yet to be released,” he said. “Besides the government of Karnataka has submitted three more projects (relating to water supply and sanitation) worth $700 million”, Yeddyurappa said and sought release of the loan at the earliest.
Press Trust of India