"One of the things about the middle income countries is that despite their relative success, they still have most of the world's poor, the problems and challenges and that is why we continue to do concessional lending to India," Wolfowitz said in a round table with reporters ahead of the annual meetings of the Bank and the Fund in Singapore next week.
"I was privileged to visit an extraordinary programme in Andhra Pradesh where with some assistance from the Bank, some 28 million poor families participating in this programme and very poor people for whom these resources make a big change in their lives and I have no difficulty explaining why that sort of concessional lending ought to continue for sometime," the President of the Bank maintained.
He pointed out that China has now moved into a category that it does not require concessional lending from the Bank but it still finds the relationship with the Bank on non-concessional terms very valuable.
"It is a privileged position for our institution to be part of that transmission belt but we are also a transmission belt for lessons learnt in China, lessons learned in India or elsewhere," he added.