World Bank

New Loan for Mexico: The World Bank will lend Mexico, the developing world's second-largest debtor, nearly $2 billion to fund two hydroelectric projects and help reduce its interest payments, the government has announced. The announcement by Finance Minister Pedro Aspe came the same day Mexico resumed negotiations in New York with a 15-member committee representing creditor banks and two days after the government liberalized its foreign investment rules. The new loan package "will support structural changes undertaken by the federal government in the financial, industrial, commercial and state-run sectors," Aspe said.

The cost of food around the world is rising again, due to bad weather, soaring oil costs and strong demand in Asia for imports, according to the World Bank. Global food prices soared 8% between December and March after dipping late last year from record highs, according to the organization's quarterly index . Unless food producers manage to funnel more product into the market, economists worry that prices could continue to spike. “After four months of consecutive price declines, food prices are on the rise again, threatening the food security of millions of people,” said Otaviano Canuto, the World Bank's vice president for poverty reduction and economic management, in a statement.

Brazil's failure to settle its differences with the International Monetary Fund and World Bank has raised concerns that the Third World's largest debtor may once again stop interest payments to Western banks, bankers said Wednesday. The Brazilian government is trying to persuade the two Washington-based agencies, as well as its bank creditors, to free up more than $3 billion of loans stalled by Brazil's inability to meet certain economic targets.

WASHINGTON — The World Bank selected Jim Yong Kim, president of Dartmouth College and an expert in public health, as its next president, continuing a seven-decade practice of installing an American citizen to lead the institution. There had been complaints from developing countries that their citizens should have a chance to run the bank. Two other nominees sought the job — Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and a former Colombian finance minister, Jose Antonio Ocampo.

The United States told the world's commercial banks Monday that they had better do their part in providing new loans and debt reduction plans for Mexico and other debtor countries or they will risk jeopardizing the new Third World debt strategy. At a meeting of international bankers here, Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady noted bluntly that governments and international organizations such as the World Bank had set up all the machinery needed to carry out the new debt plan. "Now it is time for the commercial banks and debtor nations to seize the opportunity that has been provided," he said.

WASHINGTON — The World Bank selected Jim Yong Kim, president of Dartmouth College and an expert in public health, as its next president, continuing a seven-decade practice of installing an American citizen to lead the institution. There had been complaints from developing countries that their citizens should have a chance to run the bank. Two other nominees sought the job — Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and a former Colombian finance minister, Jose Antonio Ocampo.

The World Bank, taking aim at one of China's most entrenched interest groups, told the country's top leadership that it had to reform the nation's powerful state sector to ensure stability in the world's fastest-growing major economy. China's economic model is "unsustainable," and the Asian giant is in danger of falling into a so-called "middle-income trap" if it fails to launch meaningful remedies, said World Bank President Robert Zoellick. "This is not the time just for muddling through," Zoellick said Monday at a conference attended by high-level officials in Beijing.

After a superheated rise, China's economy is starting to slow. Luckily, according to the World Bank, the Asian superpower is headed for a “soft landing” instead of a crash that could overwhelm the multitude of countries with which China now does business. The bank, in its quarterly report on the country , forecasts 8.2% GDP growth for China this year and 8.6% expansion in 2013. The numbers signal a more “gradual slowdown” than the nation's recent tumble from 10.4% growth in 2010 to 9.2% last year.

News that the World Bank is hunting for a new leader brought forth fresh denials that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is yearning for the job. Robert Zoellick, president of the international financial institution, announced in a statement Wednesday that he plans to step down at the end of June, when his five-year term ends. The U.S. president traditionally appoints the chief of the Washington-based global bank. In a letter to the World Bank's staff, Zoellick praised the organization for its work at a time of global economic turmoil.

News that the World Bank is hunting for a new leader brought forth fresh denials that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is yearning for the job. Robert Zoellick, president of the international financial institution, announced in a statement Wednesday that he plans to step down at the end of June, when his five-year term ends. The U.S. president traditionally appoints the chief of the Washington-based global bank. In a letter to the World Bank's staff, Zoellick praised the organization for its work at a time of global economic turmoil.

After a superheated rise, China's economy is starting to slow. Luckily, according to the World Bank, the Asian superpower is headed for a “soft landing” instead of a crash that could overwhelm the multitude of countries with which China now does business. The bank, in its quarterly report on the country , forecasts 8.2% GDP growth for China this year and 8.6% expansion in 2013. The numbers signal a more “gradual slowdown” than the nation's recent tumble from 10.4% growth in 2010 to 9.2% last year.

President Obama's nominee to head the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, is taking heat from some economists and others for past criticism of "corporate-led economic growth," which he said has come at the expense of the very poor. “Dr Kim would be the first World Bank president ever who seems to be anti-growth,” William Easterly, an economics professor at New York University, told the Financial Times . “Even the severest of World Bank critics like me think that economic growth is what we want.” Kim's comments came in a 2000 book he co-edited entitled, " Dying For Growth: Global Inequality and the Health of the Poor.

President Obama's decision to nominate a South Korean-born educator and health expert to lead the World Bank — and not someone with experience in global finance or diplomacy — reflects the increasingly fractious politics of international agencies and the need to address growing demands for representation outside the U.S. and Europe, analysts say. Obama's nomination of Dartmouth College President Jim Yong Kim to succeed Robert Zoellick comes...

President Obama's nominee to head the World Bank, Dartmouth President Jim Yong Kim, is more than just an expert on global health issues -- he's a pretty mean rapper and dancer. Kim busted some moves last year in the finals of a music competition called "Dartmouth Idol," performing in a studded, white leather jacket, white fedora and funky sunglasses along with the Dartmouth College Gospel Choir. Kim sang parts of "The Time of My Life" from the movie "Dirty Dancing" and "Dirty Bit" from the Black Eyed Peas.

President Obama on Friday nominated Dartmouth College President Jim Yong Kim, a physician and anthropologist by training, to succeed Robert Zoellick as the next president of the World Bank. The naming of Kim was seen as a surprise.  Kim, 52, though highly regarded for his leadership in global health issues, is not well known in political or financial circles. But the appointment of the South Korean-born Kim may also deflect criticisms from developing economies of the United States having a lock on the World Bank's top position.

The World Bank, taking aim at one of China's most entrenched interest groups, told the country's top leadership that it had to reform the nation's powerful state sector to ensure stability in the world's fastest-growing major economy. China's economic model is "unsustainable," and the Asian giant is in danger of falling into a so-called "middle-income trap" if it fails to launch meaningful remedies, said World Bank President Robert Zoellick. "This is not the time just for muddling through," Zoellick said Monday at a conference attended by high-level officials in Beijing.

President Obama on Friday nominated Dartmouth College President Jim Yong Kim, a physician and anthropologist by training, to succeed Robert Zoellick as the next president of the World Bank. The naming of Kim was seen as a surprise.  Kim, 52, though highly regarded for his leadership in global health issues, is not well known in political or financial circles. But the appointment of the South Korean-born Kim may also deflect criticisms from developing economies of the United States having a lock on the World Bank's top position.