Besides direct committment of $ 1.67 million worth of credit, the IFC assisted in $ 4.62 lakh worth of loan syndicate approvals during the 1997-98 financial year (ended June 30).

The corporation also undertook consultancy, of an advisory nature, for Goa in undertaking privatisation of the state's power distribution company during 1997-98 fiscal.

"IFC played a major role in several significant investment projects before approvals were suspended toward the end of the fiscal year (due to India's nuclear tests)," says the annual report of the organisation released recently.

"IFC agreed to finance a number of smaller projects in finance and manufacturing, laying the basis for reaching out to small and medium enterprises in the years to come in India," thereport says.

The World Bank body also committed funding to an infrastructure company in the country and was working to restore investor confidence in the Asian economies, the report says. IFC is making a fundamental shift in its method of analysing markets by no longer looking at markets in toto, but instead on specific sectors within countries that need financial and strategic resources, the report said, elaborating on future plans of the organisation."The corporation will focus on underserved segments and niches that private investors are not reaching on their own."

In the countries most favoured by private investors, IFC's approach was to target "middle market companies" that have been overlooked and lower-income regions, it said.

The organisation observed that privatisation was never easy especially in some developing countries where political sensitivities were acute. "IFC is in a unique position to make these transactions happen," says the report. The report said the 1998 fiscal would beremembered as a time when financial and currency crisis swept through the east Asia region, affecting global economy.

The crisis started in Thailand, which had financed its growing current account deficit with external short-term credit, the report says, adding the contagion later spread to other countries due to devaluation of the Thai currency which put pressure on other southeast Asian currencies.