Russia is quite satisfied with its cooperation with the World Bank, said Vladimir Putin when opening the meeting with the bank’s president. Though Russia does not want to take out any large loans right now, it is mainly interested in joint work with the bank, he said. Above all, the talks were about the need to obtain information on the respective techniques of joint work in monitoring various Russian projects.
According to Vladimir Putin, the bank’s plans in other CIS countries, in particular, in Central Asia which is to be visited by James Wolfensohn after Moscow, were also of interest to Russia which maintained close relations with these countries.
James Wolfensohn also expressed satisfaction with the development of cooperation with Russia and said that he expected similar results in the future. In his opinion, they could do a lot together even without Russia taking loans from the bank.
Vladimir Putin and James Wolfensohn also discussed some aspects of Russia’s relations with the World Bank for the next three years. These will be new relations, with loans for concrete investment projects to take the place of budget-replacing loans.