South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on Monday declared his country's support to Jim Yong Kim for the post of World Bank President, saying that he believes the Korean-born health and development expert is the right person to lead and reform the global lender.
U.S. President Barack Obama last month nominated Kim, President of Dartmouth College, as the next World Bank chief. Kim is expected to be formally chosen as President of the institution later this month.
Kim who arrived in Seoul on Sunday on a two-day trip visited Lee.
"Korea received a lot of help from the World Bank in the past," Lee said at the start of the meeting with Kim. "I believe the right person has been nominated at a time when the World Bank needs change," he was quoted by the official Yonhap news agency as saying.
Kim expressed gratitude for Lee's support, saying that he will lead the 187-nation organization based on a lesson learned from South Korea's economic development experience that investment in human resources is key to economic development in developing countries.
Born in Seoul in 1959, Kim moved to the U.S. with his family when he was five years old.
As a pioneer in the treatment of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, Kim has the breadth of experience on development issues needed to carry out the financial institution's anti-poverty mission, Obama said while nominating Kim as the U.S. nominee for the post, which traditionally held by a U.S. citizen while the IMF's top post went to a European.
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