You're reading: Russia to back U.S. candidate to lead World Bank – Finance Minister

Russia will support Jim Yong Kim as U.S. President Barack Obama's nominee to lead the World Bank, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said.

"Considering high professional qualities of Mr. Kim and also taking into account his experience and knowledge, the Russian Federation will support Jim Yong Kim’s candidacy during the voting at the Bank’s Board of Directors," Siluanov told journalists following a meeting with Jim Yong Kim in Moscow on Friday, Apr.13.

The BRICS countries (the members of the informal association of emerging economies, i.e. Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), focused on the candidate’s professional qualities in discussing his nomination to lead the World Bank, Siluanov said.

"Mr. Kim is a professional of an international scope, familiar with practical work, who occupied leading positions at major international organizations," Siluanov said. In addition, the candidate "has firsthand knowledge of our country, as he worked a lot in Russia by promoting World Health Organization standards in the healthcare area," he said.

Jim Yong Kim told about his record of work and management of major projects worth dozens of millions of U.S. dollars and set out some of his views on approaches toward resolving global problems of development and the World Bank’s possible role in their resolution, Siluanov said.

"As for us, we outlined a number of priorities in Russia’s cooperation with the World Bank in the midterm, including cooperation in preparing for Russia’s chairmanship of G20 in 2013 and this chairmanship itself," he said.

In addition to the finance minister, Jim Yong Kim also met with Russian First Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Denisov and presidential aide Arkady Dvorkovich.
The meetings were arranged as part of Jim Yong Kim’s tour of Ethiopia, China, Japan, South Korea, India, Brazil, Mexico, and Russia to hold consultations with the authorities of these countries to win their support for voting at the World Bank Board of Directors on April 16 and learn their vision of prospects of the World Bank’s development in years to come.

Russia has only once objected to a primary candidate to head one of the principal international financial institutions when it proposed former Czech National Bank Chairman Josef Tosovsky as an alternative candidate for International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director in 2007.

The IMF is traditionally led by a representative of Europe, while the World Bank president is traditionally nominated by the U.S.