'India largest borrower of World Bank'

New Delhi, Dec 2 : World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick Wednesday here said India is its 'single largest' borrower, after Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee conveyed his appreciation to the organization for their increased lending in the wake of financial crisis.

Mukherjee said Zoellick has been instrumental in the approval, by the World Bank Board, of several loan packages to India amounting to USUSD 4.3 billion in one single day in September 2009.

'India is the World Bank's single largest borrower,' Zoellick said, in turn.

He appreciated India's contribution and the role India has played in the World Bank group namely IBRD, IDA and the IFC.

The World Bank President also sought India's support in widening the capital base of the World Bank so that it can appropriately meet the needs of developmental finance.

Mukherjee informed the World Bank President that India has always been at the forefront of providing greater capital support to all the multilateral development institutions and had enthusiastically supported a 200pc capital increase for the Asian Development Bank.

'We are looking forward for expeditious completion of the process of voice and quota reforms in the institutions of the World Bank, so as to increase the effective representation of the emerging and developing economies,' Mukherjee said.

This was the second meeting between the two in the last three months. They had earlier met at Istanbul during the Annual Meetings of the World Bank/ IMF in October 2009.

The current World Bank portfolio in India consists of 68 projects with a total commitment of US USD 19.57 billion. The average commitment during the last four financial years from the World Bank has been approximately US USD 2.3 billion. However, in the current year, the commitments are expected to reach about US USD 7 billion.