World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said global economic growth isn’t a “zero-sum game” pitting nations against each other and the world has a “huge stake” in ensuring that developing countries succeed.
“Having fragile states, having conflict-affected states, this is not good for the entire world economy,” Kim said in an interview airing this afternoon on Bloomberg Television’s “Street Smart” with Trish Regan. Developing economies “have been the drivers of growth that we have seen in the last five or six years.”
Kim, 52, the former president of Dartmouth College, succeeded Robert Zoellick as chief of the Washington-based development bank in July. He leads a poverty-fighting institution that distributed about $53 billion worth of loans last year.
“We should never, ever call any country a basket case,” Kim said. “The possibilities for growth and development in every country in the world I think are there.”
On Europe, Kim said “the world needs the Eurozone countries to find a path toward solidarity.”
The World Bank was created at the end of World War II to help rebuild ravaged Europe. Now focused on developing countries, it targets lending for projects from road-building to education programs. The bank has also expanded its scope to include taking stakes in companies and guaranteeing investments.
