Hasan Tuluy, the World Bank’s VP for Latin America, will step down from his post on April 30, Emerging Markets can exclusively reveal. He held the top spot for the region for the past 2-1/2 years and has worked at the Bank for 27 years.
Jorge Familiar, a Mexican, will replace him. Familiar will be the first VP from the region in 30 years. He has been at the Bank since 2010.
Attending the annual meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) just a month before he departures sums up one of the key components of Tuluy’s tenure. He came to the job with the goal of “working in collaboration and co-operation with other institutions in the region, whether national, subnational or big regional institutions, like IDB and CAF”.
Tuluy said part of the rapport he was able to establish with counterparts stems from the fact that he is from Turkey. “I am also from an emerging economy, which faces similar dilemmas,” he said.
He remains upbeat about the region, even though the World Bank is forecasting growth this year anywhere from 2.8% to 3.4%, much lower than initially anticipated.
“I think Latin America is in much better shape, because its overall structures are much stronger than previous crisis. Debt levels have come down significantly, financial systems have become much stronger, reserves have been built up and they have much more flexible exchange rates,” he said.
He said the region has clearly benefitted from the super-commodity cycle, with economies more diversified than they were 10 years ago.
Tuluy does caution that significant progress does not mean the region should be complacent. He said that while massive gains have been made in reducing poverty, the region still has some of the highest levels of inequality in the world and reducing this has to be the task going forward.