WB to expand lending programme to India

quot;Despite pressures after the nuclear tests, we had continued to lend toIndia to social projects,quot; he said.

Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha, who met Wolfensohn in Davos recently duringthe World Economic Forum summit, quot;understands it,quot; he said withoutelaborating on the projects that the bank proposed to take up in India.

The United States and some other industrialised nations had imposed economicsanctions on India after the nuclear tests but they have been partiallylifted since then.

The World Bank had delayed about one billion dollar worth of lending toIndia8217;s power sector projects as part of the sanctions.

Wolfensohn agreed with an Indian proposal for carrying out documentation inan attempt to protect intellectual property rights of traditional knowledge.The issue was raised by BJP member Kirit Somaiya in his intervention at theinteractive session.

Somaiya also wanted the World Bank to take measures to stabilise commodityprices, to which Wolfensohn said, quot;I do not have any solution excepting tomake available information to farmers for hedging against cyclical swings.quot;Wolfensohn said poverty alleviation had become the core of World Banklending programme, and warned that if this was not dealt with global peacewould be threatened.

Agreeing with the demand by developing countries for opening up thedeveloped countries markets to agricultural exports from them, he said thiswould help the Third World earn about 30 to 45 billion dollars which wasquot;quite a lot of money to deal with the problem of povertyquot;.