World Bank President 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, Hillary Clinton, may be headed to replace him, which was immediately denied by her aide.
In a statement on Wednesday, the World Bank said that its President 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 of his decision.
Mr. Zoellick said through June 30 he would stay 100 per cent focussed on being Bank President and would continue to drive policy and programmes at a heightened tempo.
Soon after the announcement, the U.S. media reported that possible candidates include the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, and Larry Summers, the former economic adviser to the U.S. 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, Jay Carney, said.
“The Secretary has addressed this issue many times since last year. She has said this is not happening. Her view has not changed,” the State Department spokesperson, Victoria Nuland, told reporters at her daily news conference. But these two denials did not prevent U.S. media to report on her possible venture at the World Bank.
