Announcement of Mission to Colombia to Survey Their Economy on June 30, 1949

/j...C/ ' D·rrERNATIONAL BANK FOR RECONSTHUCT ION AND D:WVELOPMENT Washing·Gon, n. c. For the Press FOR ].·1MED IATE RELEASE Press Release No. 139 June 30., 1949 The Internation.al Bank for Reconstruction and Development announced today that a nine-man team of expel:'ts would soon undertake a comprehensj_ve survey of Colombia's ove~all economy with the view of recommending ways to increase the wealth of that country. The mission, which is headed by Dr. Lauchlin Currie, eQonomist an~ formerly Administrative Assistant to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, will leave July l.O. The Colombian Government requested the International Bank to make the study. . . .. . As a~ irdioation Qf the importance .which the Bank attaches to this new type of mission., Robe.rt L. Garne:r, Vice President, will accompany it to· • Colombia ~~d .·~i+l remain there a week.. be in Colomb:t,a· f'.or· th.ree months.. The mission itself will probably It :-rill probably· require several more months to draft. the report and recommendations invo:)-v~pg Colombia's agri- culture, industry, electric·· pqwer,. ~ransportation, and public health.· The mission will ~tt~mpt to assess the eaonom:ic potentialities of CQlombia, appraise 'the fea~ibility of various ~rejects which may be recom- mended to improve the country'~ economy, and indicate. the respective roles that foreign and·donie~tie capital should play in carrying o\it the program. The International. ~ank has sent mi~sions to many of its forty-eight melllber countries, ~:p.d ha.s on occasion engaged outsic;le experts as consult- ants. But the Colombi~n mission will be· the first headed by a consultant,· .j  (' It • .. -,2 ... - rather than a Bank staff member, and it is the first for which the Bank has employed so. many other non-staff members as .Qonsultants. Three other internat~onal organizations are cooperating with the mission. Experts in their respective fields of work have been nominated by the World Health Organization, and the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, and the International Monetary Fund has associated a member of its staff with the mission .. Dr. Richard A. Musgrave, associate professor of economics at the Univer- sity of Michigan, will be chief economist of the Colombian missiol}. other,., in addition to Dr. Currie, who make up the nine-man team are: Jacquee Torfs, an economist. of the Bank; Carl w. Flesher, formerly director of construction of the u. s. Maritime Commission., wno will be adviser on industry and electric ~ power; Joseph L. White, formerly executive off.icer of the Office of Defense Transportation., u. s. Government., who will 'be advioa:i."' cm tra.neportation; Haywood R. Faison, Chief of the Division of Economics., Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors, u. s. Government who will be adviser on rivers and harbors; Raymond c. Smith., Assistant Chief, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, ) u. s. Government, nominated by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Na,tions, who will be adviser on agriculture; Roger V. Anderson, member of the staff of the Internatio.c1al Monetary F'Ulld, who "'1ill be adviser on finance and foreign exchange; and Joseph W. Nountin, M. D~, Assistant Surgeon General, u. s. Publi~ Health Service, nominated for the m\ssion by the Pan American Sanitary Bure~.u, Regional Office of the World Health Organ- ization, who will be adviser on health and sanitation• • ·-''