Press Clipping: “World Bank exit highlights China fears”

This post is from Bank Information Center - Amplifying Local Voices to Democratize Development.

[Postal Savings Bank of China / Financial Times]

BIC Executive Director Chad Dobson was quoted in a Financial Times article by Shawn Donnan about the Postal Savings Bank of China and the IFC, which has “​become​ emblematic of the often subtle ways in which Beijing and Washington battle for influence behind closed doors at the World Bank.”

T​he clash surfaced when the World Bank’s board considered the IFC’s $300m investment in June. When the 25-member board gathered to vote on it June 9, according to minutes, the representatives for the US, Japan and big European shareholders including the UK, Germany and France all abstained. Altogether nine directors responsible for 56.4 per cent of the IFC’s voting shares withheld their approval.

Because those directors abstained rather than voted against, the investment went ahead. But in the nuanced arena of World Bank board politics where outright votes against projects backed by powerful shareholders such as China are rare the vote amounted to a dramatic rebuke to Mr Cai.

“It’s very unusual,” said Chad Dobson, executive director of the Bank Information Center, a Washington-based campaign group focused on the World Bank. “They don’t [normally] go to the board when they are going to lose a vote.”

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This article by Julia Radomski originally appeared on bicusa.org on December 31, 2015 at 12:17AM