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Thank you very much for joining us today.

First I’d like to thank the Chinese people for the warm welcome I’ve received on my arrival.

I know from my last visit to China that we share a common passion to end poverty and build shared prosperity.

For the past 30 years, China has grown at a high speed, at an average of about 10 percent per year, lifting more than 500 million people out of poverty.

This is truly remarkable. It is an achievement for the history books. Still, such rapid growth is taking a toll, as China’s leaders are well aware.

The World Bank Group and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) today signaled progress in their collaboration on the Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development (KNOMAD), a new initiative on migration and development issues. KNOMAD is envisioned as a global hub of knowledge and policy expertise on migration.

The two institutions have been collaborating to establish KNOMAD, which was initiated by The World Bank Group in 2011. SDC is the top donor to the KNOMAD, with a contribution of 5 million Swiss francs (about $5.3 million).

Political risk insurance provided by a World Bank Group agency in developing nations rose for a third straight year to a record, led by guarantees on power projects from Angola to Bangladesh.

The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency in Washington issued $2.78 billion in coverage in the 12 months ended June 30, compared with $2.66 billion a year earlier, according to financial results e-mailed to Bloomberg News. That includes $511.8 million for a hydro project in Angola that has funding arranged by HSBC Holdings Plc. (HSBA)

International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde urged euro zone governments on Tuesday to make quick progress on their proposed banking union, to put the bloc's crisis definitively behind it.

European efforts to construct a joint backstop for the region are stumbling ahead, with France and Germany split on key pillars of the system, which is supposed to rebuild confidence in the euro zone's banks.

The director-general of the World Trade Organization (WTO) has told CNBC it will downgrade global trade growth estimates for both 2013 and 2014, despite hopes that the world economy is recovering.

In an exclusive interview with CNBC, Brazilian Roberto Azevedo said world trade growth estimates for this year would be revised down to 2.5 percent next week from the previous estimate of 3.3 percent.

Next year's global trade growth estimate of 5 percent would also be downgraded to 4.5 percent for 2014.

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The IMF's Executive Board has approved today a $6.6 billion loan for Pakistan to support its program to stabilize the economy and boost growth while expanding its social safety net to protect the poor.

The 36-month program under the IMF’s Extended Fund Facility aims at bringing down inflation and reducing the fiscal deficit to more sustainable levels. The program also includes measures to help achieve higher and more inclusive growth, in particular through addressing bottlenecks in the energy sector.

Advanced economies led by the United States will increasingly drive global growth while emerging countries are at risk of slowing due to tighter U.S. monetary policy, the International Monetary Fund said in a note obtained by Reuters on Wednesday.

In the surveillance note, prepared for the Group of 20 meeting in St. Petersburg, the IMF urged strengthened global action to revitalize growth and better manage risks, warning that some downside risks have become more prominent.

Hamburg is emerging as the biggest European beneficiary of Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization, which is spurring feeder services from Germany’s largest port and cementing its status as a container transfer hub between Asia and the Baltic Sea.

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Norway has agreed to give $4.9 million to the African Development Bank (AfDB) to help African governments negotiate "fair and balanced" deals with oil, gas and mining companies operating on the continent, the bank said on Monday.

The money will go to the African Legal Support Facility, a body set up by the AfDB to help African governments hammer out complex commercial deals.

Asia’s emerging economies risk being caught in the “middle income trap” if they pursue services at the expense of manufacturing, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has warned. The latest report from the regional lender came amid increasing capital flight from the region and warnings of another Asian financial crisis, should its leaders fail to learn the lessons of past mistakes.