World Bank Group President David Malpass will visit India from October 25-28, his first trip to India since assuming leadership of the organization on April 9, 2019.
During his visit, Mr Malpass will focus on understanding the emerging priorities of the Indian government in its new term as it strives to boost growth and meet the aspirations of its people, and developing the World Bank Group’s partnership with India.
While in India, Mr Malpass will meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in New Delhi. He will also meet other government officials, the private sector, and civil society. At the invitation of the Government of India, Mr Malpass will visit Gujarat to deliver the inaugural address at a 3-day event on strengthening the capacity of the Indian Administrative Services (IAS). He will interact with the new cohort of civil servants to discuss ideas on strengthening public administration in India. Mr Malpass will also give a keynote speech at the next NITI Aayog’s Lecture Series on the role of the financial sector in India’s development.
“India has made strong progress in reducing extreme poverty and implementing market-oriented reforms over the past three decades,” said David Malpass, World Bank Group President. “I look forward to my meetings with Prime Minister Modi and Finance Minister Sitharaman to discuss the Government’s priorities, and how the World Bank Group can best support India’s efforts toward boosting broad-based growth, reducing extreme poverty and raising living standards.”
India has been an important partner of the World Bank Group. As of June 2019, total net commitments from International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and International Development Association (IDA) stood at $25.5 billion (IBRD $16.9 billion, IDA $ 8.4 billion) across 101 projects.
As of end June 2019, International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) India portfolio amounted to committed exposure of approximately $6.9 billion, across 219 clients.
Between July 2018 and June 2019, the World Bank Group provided $5.17 billion in financing to India. This includes $3.02 billion from the IBRD, $0.25 billion from the IDA and $1.9 billion from IFC, the World Bank Group’s private sector arm.