The World Bank President, Mr Robert Zoellick, has announced to step down from at the end of his five-year-term in June, giving rise to speculation that the Secretary of State, Ms Hillary Clinton, may be headed to replace him, which was immediately denied by her aide.
In a statement yesterday, World Bank said that its President, Mr Robert B. Zoellick, has announced that he would step down at the end of a five-year term in which a transformed Bank played an historic role during the global economic crisis, using record replenishments to provide more than $247 billion to help developing countries boost growth and overcome poverty.
“The Bank is now strong, healthy and well positioned for new challenges, and so it is a natural time for me to move on and support new leadership,” Mr Zoellick said in a statement.
Mr Zoellick informed the Bank’s board on Wednesday morning of his decision.
Mr Zoellick said through June 30 he will stay 100 per cent focused on being Bank President and will continue to drive policy and programmes at a heightened tempo.
Soon after the announcement, the US media reported that possible candidates include the Secretary of State, Ms Hillary Clinton, and Mr Larry Summers, the former economic adviser to the US President, who is now a professor at the Harvard University.
“I really don’t have any information for you on potential successors at the World Bank,” the White House Press Secretary, Mr Jay Carney, said.
The US Treasury Secretary, Mr Timothy Geithner, in a statement said in the coming weeks, the United States plans to put forward a candidate with the experience and requisite qualities to take this institution forward.