English

World Bank vice president meets with senior Belarusian lawmaker

Shigeo Katsu, the World Bank (WB)’s vice president for Europe and Central Asia, met with Raman Unuchka, chairman of the standing Committee on Monetary Policy and Banking in Belarus’ House of Representatives, in Minsk on June 23.

According to Mr. Katsu, while in Minsk, he planned to meet with government officials to discuss current and future cooperation under the WB’s program for Belarus. During the meeting, he also introduced Martin Raiser who had taken over from Paul Birmingham as the WB regional director for Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova.

Work is currently done on a major water supply and sanitation project, Mr. Katsu said. If everything goes well, the ratification bill for an appropriate agreement may be submitted to the Belarusian parliament by the end of the summer, he noted.

The WB also has some ideas regarding the transport infrastructure, Mr. Katsu added.

Contacts between Belarus and the World Bank “lie in the plane of specific acts,” Mr. Unuchka said.

“The House of Representatives attaches great importance to deepening our cooperation,” he said. “Thanks to the World Bank, the concentration of our capital, and the bank’s loans, Belarus is solving problems that were quite beyond its own means.”

The WB considers projects submitted to it and “devises acceptable conditions for giving loans,” Mr. Unuchka said, pointing to social, energy efficiency, and water supply and sanitation projects as especially important ones. “The World Bank’s good deeds are well known in Belarus,” he noted.