For David Dollar, the World Bank's country director for China, who has traveled to Sichuan many times, the province is beautiful and the local economy is vibrant but the earthquake has cast a shadow on its prospects.

Apart from the heavy death toll, the tremor, which hit the province and its neighboring regions on May 12, has caused billions of yuan of damages. The reconstruction process may last as long as eight years. The World Bank has pledged to lend its expertise to the process.

The multilateral agency offered a $1.5 million grant to China right after the earthquake. But more importantly, it is ready to provide technical assistance to the affected areas, Dollar told China Daily.

"We are happy to lend money to China but we would provide more expertise than money," he said.

The bank is also poised to adjust its existing development projects in Sichuan to cater to local reconstruction needs. "The issue for us is: can we make our (local) projects more helpful for the reconstruction? So we will update our projects," Dollar said.

The bank has a rich experience in helping countries hit by major natural disasters such as earthquake and tsunami. It will pool relevant experts to help the government assess the damage and draft suitable rebuilding plans, Dollar said.

"We can mobilize very quickly to bring in international experts to work with their Chinese counterparts to assess the damage. That's an important potential contribution from the World Bank."

The bank will hold a workshop next week in Beijing that will be attended by international experts in fields related to the quake impact assessment and post-quake reconstruction.

"We are ready at any time (to send an expert team to the disaster zone) when the government is ready," Dollar said.

The World Bank has several ongoing projects in Sichuan, with three major projects under way in the fields of infrastructure, rural water supply improvement and primary education, he said.

"We can be very flexible about changing the projects to meet the new needs," Dollar said.

The bank's education project, for instance, focuses on curriculum improvement and teacher training, not building schools. But if the focus is now on rebuilding schools, the bank is willing to change the priority of the project, he said.

(China Daily June 6, 2008)