Russia might back some of the initiatives of the World Bank to mitigate the consequences of the financial and food crises. President Dmitri Medvedev met in the Kremlin today with World Bank President Robert Zoellick, who arrived in Russia from Osaka in Japan, where he was taking part in a meeting of G8 financiers. President Medvedev said the World Bank has demonstrated a fairly successful performance in acting for the interests of global development and he has witnessed favourable changes since Mr Zoellick took office. The Bank is currently focused on hitting its major targets, and Russia finds some of the initiatives fairly attractive.
As the world is faced with financial and food crises, President Medvedev said, the World Bank should respond quickly and appropriately. Russia sees a number of solutions to these problems, and is planning to discuss issues and programmes that have long been of mutual concern. In turn, Mr Zoellick spoke highly of the progress in Russia’s economic growth. Russia and the World Bank, he said, are due to cooperate in a large number of far-reaching projects and achieve mutually advantageous collaboration in new areas. The two have reached agreement on the World Bank granting Russia a 200 million dollar (4.735 billion roubles. 129.261 million euros. 101.76 million UK pounds) loan to restructure the housing sector. In the course of Mr Zoellick’s visit, the two sides are expected to sign a memorandum on mutual understanding between the World Bank Group and the Russian Vneshekonombank.
16 June 2008
Yelena Studneva
http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=28448&cid=57&p=16.06.2008
Voices from Russia 
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