MARTIN RAISER

Martin Raiser is the country director for China and Mongolia for the World Bank, a 189-member lender that gives priority to ending extreme poverty and promoting shared prosperity.

He joined the World Bank in 2003 and was posted to China in March last year. Raiser leads a team that is managing an evolving partnership with the country.

Raiser holds a doctoral degree in economics from the University of Kiel, Germany, and degrees in economics and economic history from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences.

As a longtime observer of how China's huge poverty-relief drive has proceeded, he says China's reform and opening-up and its targeted interventions in reducing poverty are among the lessons that can be learned and disseminated among other developing countries.