Announcement of the Bank Sending Mission to Chile Relating to the Chilean Loan Application on December 5, 1947

INTERNATIONAL BANK FOR RECONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOP}IENT FOR THE PRESS FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Press Release No. 72 December 5, 1947 The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development announced today that it is sending a mission to Chile to make economic and technical studies relative to the Chilean loan application. The mission, which is headed by Gilbert H. Clee, Chief of the Western Latin American Division of the Loan Department, is going to Chile in response to an invitation ex- tended by the Corporacion Fomento de la Produccion with the approval of the Chilean Government. Fomento is a government-ovrned corporation engaged in the economic develop,lnent of Chile. Mr. Clee will be accompanied by Jacques Torfs, economist of the Bank, and Mr. R. Ducci of the Fomento Corporation. They plan to leave Washington b'y plane on December 6th and will remain in Chile for several weeks. It is contemplated that two independent engineers from the United ~ States, experts in the specific fields of forest industries and electri- \2) fication, will join the mission in Chile and submit their findings to the Bank officials. Chilefs loan application relates to financing hydro-electric develop- ment, forest industries, railway electrification, transportation facilities ' I and port mechanization, Prior to coming to the Bank, Mr. Clee was general partner in the firm of Normans. Taber & Company of New York, consultants on governmental finance. During the war he was a Lieutenant-Connnander in the Uo 8. Navy. He was assigned to work with the British Admiralty in London and l~ter, was attached to the staff of the Commander-in-Chief, u. s. Pacific Fleet, serving with Admiral Nimitz in the Pacific, before ret~ng to Washington on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations. Mr. Torfs, before joining the International Bank~. was Acting Chief of the I~dustrial Division of the Belgian ~conomic Mission in Washington. Previous to that he wa.s Assistant to the Price Controller and Acting Textile .Controller for Belgium in the Belgian Congo. During the war, he served in the American Army. D