(Bloomberg) -- The head of the World Bank said the lender will find new ways to be involved in encouraging growth for the private sector of developing nations after the cancellation of its flagship “Doing Business” report.
“We've discontinued the report, but the World Bank is going to be very, very involved in the business climate of developing countries,” bank President David Malpass said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Wednesday. “That's critical for them in establishing jobs and getting growth, attracting new investment. That's the purpose of the report.”
Last week, the World Bank said it decided to abandon the “Doing Business” series entirely after a probe turned up serious ethics issues. Malpass declined to elaborate on the audit, saying that “the report speaks for itself.”
That investigation by law firm WilmerHale at the behest of the development lender's board found that current International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, in her prior job as a top official at the World Bank, applied pressure to boost China's position in a ranking of economies. Georgieva has said she disagrees “fundamentally” with the findings.
Read more: IMF Chief Says She Sought Double-Checking, Not Changes, of Data
A separate external panel report released earlier this week had urged the institution to overhaul the project by scrapping aggregate ratings and prohibiting staff members from providing paid consulting services to nations, rather than canceling the report altogether.
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