Kazakhstan among largest World Bank’s borrowers in 2011 fiscal year

Amidst the uncertainty in the Eurozone and moderate economic growth rates, the World Bank provided emerging markets of Europe and Central Asia loans worth $10.47 billion in the fiscal year ending June 30, the WB’s Press Service reports. According to the WB’s Global Economic Prospects June 2012 report, the largest borrowers [in Europe and Central Asia] in the 2011 fiscal year were Romania ($1.9 billion), Turkey ($1.1 billion), Kazakhstan ($1.1 billion) and Poland ($1 billion). Since inception in 1944, the World Bank has expanded from a single institution to a closely associated group of five development institutions. Its mission evolved from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) as facilitator of post-war reconstruction and development to the present-day mandate of worldwide poverty alleviation in close coordination with the International Development Association, and other members of the World Bank Group, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Multilateral Guarantee Agency (MIGA), and the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).