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Mr Nicholas H. Stern, Senior Vice-President and Chief Economist of World Bank, addressing a news conference in Bangalore on Tuesday.

BANGALORE, May 20

INDIA will continue to be a borrowing country from the World Bank despite the round of prepayments that were done recently.

Briefing reporters here on Tuesday, Dr Nicholas Stern, Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President of the World Bank, said, "It is a tribute to India that such prepayments were made." However, he added that India's resource requirements were large for meeting the development needs and would therefore continue to be a borrowing country. This was despite the fact that India had managed to beat the "Hindu rate of growth" and managed to sustain a growth trajectory of around 6 per cent since the inception of economic reforms.

Dr Stern was briefing reporters on the agenda for the 15th annual bank conference on development economics (ABCDE). This conference, he said, would focus on accelerating development in the developing countries. The conference was being held outside the US for the first time and Bangalore was chosen as the location. He said this would now become prelude for having the Bank's conferences outside the US. Asked if this was a precursor to holding other conferences outside the US, he said this year's Fund-Bank conference would be held in Dubai.

He said that the 15th ABCDE would have academics drawn from all over the world to discuss the issue of accelerating development. Some countries had been able to sustain high growth rates with economic reforms. However other countries in East Asia and Africa have continued to remain backward despite the assistance of the bank, he said. Accordingly this conference was intended to exchange the ideas on the methodologies adopted for the accelerating the growth.

Dr Stern said that the focus of the conference would not be confined to traditional measurements, or raising the per capita income. He said that the bank would substantially focus on social sector development as a criterion for accelerating economic growth and reducing poverty. Among the issues that would be focussed are on bettering rural development through increasing aid to rural water supply, rural health and education, he added.

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