Broader Role

SINGAPORE, September 18, 2006 (LBO) – The International Finance Corporation, the World Bank’s private sector lender, is scaling up operations in smaller countries, as it looks for ways to share expertise to give market access to rural communities. Sales of these carbon credits, helps the Netherlands comply with its commitments under the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol. The Washington based lender is also keen to invest in infrastructure projects that have a trickle down effect on rural communities.

We like to invest in the ˜hardware’ of infrastructure projects like roads, power as well as the ˜software’ side of health, education, IFCs Executive Vice President, Lars Thunell said Monday on the sidelines of this week’s IMF World Bank annual meetings.

In Sri Lanka we like to get involved more through partnerships with micro enterprises, by sharing our technical expertise..our Colombo office has been scaled up to carry out our work, Thunell said.

As at June 30, IFC has invested 90 million dollars in Sri Lanka out of around 700 million dollars they invested in the South Asian region.

Technical assistance for small business development is our main contribution to private sector development in