WORLD BANK TO BRING BORROWING FORWARD THIS YEAR
The World Bank intends to bring
borrowing forward into the first half of 1987 because it
expects global interest rates to rise by year end, World Bank
vice president and treasurer Eugene Rotberg said.
    He told a news conference that rates in the U.S., Japan,
West Germany and Switzerland were near their lows. "The weight
of opinion is (that in a year from now) there is a higher
probability there will be one pct higher than one pct lower
interest rates," he said.
    The World Bank had not issued floating rate notes so far
this year because of the expectation of higher interest rates.
    The policy of the World Bank was to maintain liquidity at a
level that gave the bank flexibility to decide when, where and
how much to borrow, Rotberg said.
    Cash in hand was now about 50 pct of the next three years'
anticipated net requirement and comprised 25 pct of outstanding
debt and 66 pct of its debt maturing within five years.
    Although the World Bank had pioneered the swap market, it
did not intend to launch new financial instruments just for the
sake of innovation, Rotberg said.
    Of a total of 74.5 billion dlrs debt outstanding, only some
eight billion had been swapped into another currency.
    Many recent innovations were either unfair to investors or
unfair to borrowers. Until the World Bank was confident that
this was not the case, it would not adopt new instruments.
    The World Bank would raise 90 pct of the funds needed over
the next year with methods used before, Rotberg said. However,
for some 10 pct of new requirements the bank would try out new
instruments such as bonds with warrants.
    The World Bank had publicly offered 60 bonds in Germany
since the first issue was launched in 1959, he said.

