The World Bank Group in Abuja, capital of Nigeria, on Thursday reiterated it commitment to expanding its products and services to serve middle income countries (MICs) in Africa better, according to the News Agency of Nigeria on Friday.

The Bank in a statement in Abuja said there are plans to reduce non-financial costs of doing business with it following some resolutions at the Bank's two-day spring meeting in Washington recently.

"We have taken your feedback and tasked an institutional Working Group to come up with new innovative ways of serving MICs and are finalizing an Action Plan to guide our engagement with MICs in Africa," the statement said.

The statement added that high-level consultation was held in Washington on the sidelines of the Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.

The key objective of the Africa MIC Action Plan stresses the need for the Bank to provide services better, faster and cheaper; moving rapidly from development lending to a development partnership in MICs. The statement said the Africa MIC Action Plan proposes a three- year pilot of a different way of doing business in MICs, anchored in part on two pilot projects to combat the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Botswana and Swaziland.

(Xinhua News Agency April 19, 2008)