Outgoing World Bank (WB) president Robert B Zoellick will arrive in India on Monday for an official visit to see what more the Bank can do to support the government efforts to overcome poverty as India embarks on its 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17).

“The Bank’s partnership with India, one of our founding members, goes back six decades, and we look forward to sustaining it in the years ahead,” Zoellick said.

“Shifts in the world economy could affect India’s growth momentum and sharpen its development challenges. The Bank stands ready to continue to support India with its knowledge and financial resources to meet the challenges ahead,” he said in a statement.

Zoellick’s visit to India begins barely two days after the World Bank announced three candidates to succeed him.

Jim Yong Kim, a US citizen and president of Dartmouth College; Jose Antonio Ocampo, a Colombian national and professor at Columbia University; and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a Nigerian national and finance minister of Nigeria who will be considered to take over the as the next president of the multi-lateral funding instiution.

The selection requires the executive directors conduct formal interviews of the three candidates in Washington during the following weeks.

The WB expects to select the new president by “consensus” by 2012 spring meeting with the IMF that will begin in April 2012.

Last week, International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Christine Lagarde visited India.

India is one of World Bank’s key clients and the institution will later this year outline the roadmap for its engagement in the country over the next four years. India is the largest client for the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, (IBRD) which lends to middle income countries and its private sector arm, International Financial Corporation (IFC).

The group in its last fiscal (ending June 2011) made $6.33billion (Rs 30,000 crore) available to India, including $3.5 billion (Rs 16,000 crore) from IBRD, $775 million (Rs 4,000 crore) from IFC, and $2.1 billion (Rs 10,000 crore) from its fund for the poorest, the International Development Association, (IDA).