Turkey to get World Bank board seats

ANKARA

Turkey will take over the deputy executive directorship duty in the World Bank between 2014 and 2016, and executive directorship duty between 2020 and 2024, in the framework of the new “Nation Group Agreement,” the Treasury announced on Oct. 16.

The country will therefore take part in the World Bank's board of executive directors for the first time since its establishment.

Turkey’s voting power increased to 1.08 percent from 0.53 percent as part of the World Bank’s Voting Power Reform in 2010. It thus became the second most powerful country in its group in terms of its voting power after Belgium. In addition to Turkey and Belgium, Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Luxembourg, Belarus and Kosovo are in the same group of countries.

Executive directors have a dual responsibility as representatives of the Bank’s member country or countries that appointed or elected them, as well as of Bank officials who represent the interests and concerns of those countries.

Turkey has also had the right to be directly represented in the main governing body of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) since July 2014.