Almost from the beginning of the transition process, China has made intensive and effective use of several international development agencies, in particular the World Bank. The relationship between China and the World Bank, since the PRC replaced Taiwan on the Bank's Board in May 1980, has been very intensive and on the whole quite successful. It has grown to be a mature and significant partnership. China became the Bank's largest client in 1993 and, in the aggregate over the years since 1981 when the first three loans were made, the Bank has been China's largest single source of long-term foreign capital. The quality of the Bank's project portfolio in China is considered one of the best.
Projects are generally well implemented, within budget, on time and achieve their objectives.
The project failure rate is comparatively low. Since the middle of this year, China ceased to be eligible for IDA funds because of the country's sharply improved international creditworthiness. On poverty and performance grounds, the other two IDA criteria, it would otherwise have remained eligible. China rejoined the IMF in April 1980, but has used the Fund's financial resources only once, in the mid-1980s. The IMF also has a representative office in Beijing and maintains a modest, but important, technical assistance program that has been mostly focused on fiscal, monetary, banking and foreign exchange policy issues.