Staying Relevant in a Changing Global Economy

 

A farmer switches on a biogas lamp. His is one of the 500,000 farmer households that benefited from a World Bank-supported eco-farming project.

China Today: Have any obstacles or misunderstandings arisen between China and the World Bank throughout all these long years? How did you surmount these barriers to propel the collaboration?

Mr. Bert Hofman: As in any good partnership, we have experienced a few rough patches, but every time we went through one, both sides remained persuaded of the value of the partnership and this enabled us to eventually overcome it.

China Today: In September 2010, at the symposium of commemoration of the 30th anniversary of cooperation between China and the World Bank, then-Vice Premier Li Keqiang declared that, over the past three decades, the two parties had carried out productive cooperation in an innovative way and reaped mutual benefits. Five years have now passed. With what creative ideas are the two parties attempting to create a new development model? What are the results? 

Mr. Bert Hofman: Cooperation has certainly further intensified since then. First, our knowledge cooperation has strengthened via a new approach towards knowledge, namely joint reports of the World Bank and Chinese organizations, such as the Development Research Center of the State Council. I further believe that China 2030, and Urban China: Toward Efficient, Inclusive, and Sustainable Urbanization are milestones for the World Bank and China that have provided some useful ideas for China’s policy orientation in the 12th Five-year Plan and the forthcoming 13th Five-year Plan. We have also started preparing operations in China using new financing instruments, such as the Program for Results, among others, to tackle issues such as air pollution and health care improvement. Further, China recently granted its first trust fund to the bank with the aim of enhancing knowledge cooperation and project preparation in other countries. Relative to the latter, China is also a founding member of the World Bank’s Global Infrastructure Facility, which targets increasing the volume of bankable infrastructure projects in the developing world. Thus, in brief, our partnership has deepened and broadened in the past five years.

China Today: What is the World Bank’s view of the Chinese government’s proposal of the AIIB? Are there any potential cooperative opportunities between the two parties?

Mr. Bert Hofman: We greatly welcome China’s initiatives of the AIIB and New Development Bank as these can contribute to filling the large gap in development financing, specifically infrastructure financing. These needs are huge, and far exceed what existing sources of finance, including the World Bank, can supply. For this reason, we have been supportive from the start, aiding new organizations in getting up and running. We also hope to partner with the AIIB and NDB in future financing projects that alleviate critical bottlenecks in infrastructure. 

China Today: As chief economist, what is your opinion of the cooperation? And what are your future expectations?

Mr. Bert Hofman: This is my third term working in China, so I have myself been involved in the growth of the China-World Bank partnership. Unsurprisingly, I find this partnership unique and enormously valuable to the World Bank. Accordingly, I hope to contribute to the further evolution of the partnership in such a way as to ensure it stays relevant and useful in an ever-changing world.