WB ex-chief says power heading east
Saturday, 22 September 2007
HONG KONG, Sept 21 (AFP): The former president of the World Bank said today that rich countries were ill-prepared to deal with the "tectonic shift" in economic power towards developing nations, in particular to India and China.
James Wolfensohn said rich nations still treated major developing nations with a "colonial" attitude and had not fully understood the way the power had moved eastward as a result of economic expansion.
"The leadership in the developed world, and people who should know better, still have not adjusted to the fact that this is not just a modest change in global economic power and influence, but a tectonic shift," he told a financial forum in Hong Kong.
"If you look at the developed world and how it is addressing this change, the steps that are being taken are the post-flood rehabilitation works," he said.
The Bank completed negotiations with the government in mid-September for the proposed $75 million budgetary support to Bangladesh. After getting the endorsement by the WB Board, the loan agreement is expected to be signed early next month, finance ministry sources said.
The finance ministry official stated that after the flood impact assessment, the Bank might cross-check it with the government and then would provide assistance to the country for its post-flood rehabilitation works.
"Usually the WB helps Bangladesh in construction of damaged roads, bridges, embankments and supply of safe drinking water to the flood-hit areas," he said citing the experience of the last devastating flood in 2004.
The official said the global lender provided around $200 million funds for rehabilitation works in Bangladesh to recover from the losses and damage after the flood of 2004.
Meanwhile, the 185-member multilateral donor agency has conducted a preliminary impact assessment of the recent flood where it projected that about 0.7 million homes, 0.7 million hectares of cropfield and 1900 kilometre of roads have been washed away.
In the meeting of the Local Consultative Group (LCG), a platform of the bilateral and multilateral donors working in Bangladesh, on August 8 in Dhaka, the Washington-based lender disclosed their preliminary impact assessment of the recent flood.
In its assessment report, the Bank estimated that the gross domestic product (GDP) growth might decline by 0.2 percentage points from the 7.0 per cent benchmark in the current fiscal 2007-08 due to recent floods.
The inflation is likely to increase, present comfortable balance of payment could be affected and the fiscal deficit might increase due to the recent flood in Bangladesh, the report quoted.
James Wolfensohn said rich nations still treated major developing nations with a "colonial" attitude and had not fully understood the way the power had moved eastward as a result of economic expansion.
"The leadership in the developed world, and people who should know better, still have not adjusted to the fact that this is not just a modest change in global economic power and influence, but a tectonic shift," he told a financial forum in Hong Kong.
"If you look at the developed world and how it is addressing this change, the steps that are being taken are the post-flood rehabilitation works," he said.
The Bank completed negotiations with the government in mid-September for the proposed $75 million budgetary support to Bangladesh. After getting the endorsement by the WB Board, the loan agreement is expected to be signed early next month, finance ministry sources said.
The finance ministry official stated that after the flood impact assessment, the Bank might cross-check it with the government and then would provide assistance to the country for its post-flood rehabilitation works.
"Usually the WB helps Bangladesh in construction of damaged roads, bridges, embankments and supply of safe drinking water to the flood-hit areas," he said citing the experience of the last devastating flood in 2004.
The official said the global lender provided around $200 million funds for rehabilitation works in Bangladesh to recover from the losses and damage after the flood of 2004.
Meanwhile, the 185-member multilateral donor agency has conducted a preliminary impact assessment of the recent flood where it projected that about 0.7 million homes, 0.7 million hectares of cropfield and 1900 kilometre of roads have been washed away.
In the meeting of the Local Consultative Group (LCG), a platform of the bilateral and multilateral donors working in Bangladesh, on August 8 in Dhaka, the Washington-based lender disclosed their preliminary impact assessment of the recent flood.
In its assessment report, the Bank estimated that the gross domestic product (GDP) growth might decline by 0.2 percentage points from the 7.0 per cent benchmark in the current fiscal 2007-08 due to recent floods.
The inflation is likely to increase, present comfortable balance of payment could be affected and the fiscal deficit might increase due to the recent flood in Bangladesh, the report quoted.