Announcement of Discussions of Aid to India on September 9, 1960

HOLD FOR RELEASE WORLD 1818 H STREET, N.W., WASHINGTON 25, D. C. TELEPHONE: EXECUTIVE 3-6360 PRESS RELEASE NO. 648 FOR RELEASE A.M. Newspapers SUBJECT: Discussions of Friday, September 9, 196o aid to India The World Bank will convene a meeting in Paris next Monday for a preliminary discussion of financial aid for India's Third Five-Yea:c Plan of economic develop- ment. Besides the Bank, the Governmentn of Canada, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States will be represented. The International Monetary Fund and the Government of Italy will send observers. • The meeting will be held at the Paris offices of the Bank, and is expected to last two or three days. dent of the World Bank. The chairman will be Mr. J. Burke Knapp, Vice Presi- The leaders of the other delegations will be Mr. J. F. Parkinson of the Department of Finance of Canada, Dr. Hans Henckel of the Ministry of Economics of Germany, Mr. Masao Kaya of the Finance Ministry of Japan, Sir Denis Rickf;?·tt of the United Kingdom Treasury and Mr. Edwin M. Martin of the United States Department of State. The participants will review the present economic and financial situation of India, consider the need for further external assistance during the current year (the final year of the Second Plan), and give preliminary consideration to the requirements of the Third Plan commencing in April 1961. It is not ex- pected that any definite conclusions regarding external assistance for the. Third Plan will be reached at this meeting, or that any communique will be •• issued when the meeting adjourns.  • - 2 - This Will be the third time that representatives of the Bank and the Governments have met to consider financial assistance for the economic development of India. The group was first convened by the Bank at~; :Washington I in August 1958, when India was experiencing an acute shortage of foreign ex- change and. was using up its foreign exchange reserves at a dangerously rapid rate in order to maintain imports essential to the Second Plan. A~er the August talks, the Bank and the Governments began bilateral negotiations with the Indian Government of arrangements for aid which covered the foreign exchange needed in the third year, then current, of the Second Five-Year Plan. The participants met again at Washington in March 1959, after which similar bilateral arrangements were made for the financial assisttmce in the fourth year of the Plan commencing in April of that year • I) \ •