Beijing: Outgoing World Bank President Robert Zoellick on Tuesday said he would back the proposed BRICS bank desired by the five member grouping for various reasons including large infrastructure demand by India.
The bank chief said he favoured his organisation working with such a lending agency as with any other development bank.
Answering questions at the Boao Forum for Asia in China's Hainan province on the plans of BRICS countrie - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - to have a bank of their own, Zoellick said it is still to be finalised by the Finance Ministers of the five nation bloc.
"It's still at the stage where the Finance Ministers are analysing it to go forward. As a general principle, my view would be, if the countries want to develop it, then we should work with it," he said, according to the transcript circulated to the media by the World Bank.
He said it is important to understand what was driving countries like, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, (BRICS) to for a Bank of their own.
"People often jump to an issue and they don't step back and think about what's driving it. In India it's very much a concern that they want more multilateral financing. Their needs for infrastructure financing are very great," he said.
"They've drawn on the Bank support over years. I think our total outstandings are about $38 billion from different sources in India.
"Frankly, we've been somewhat limited about what we can do in India going forward, in part because our share holders say, well, you don't want too much to one country and so on and so forth," he said.
"I've actually tried to push against that. I increased the single borrowing limit for India, and I'm trying to look for innovative ways we can leverage our financing with guarantees and others.
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