World Bank president leaving come June

World Bank President Robert Zoellick said on Wednesday he is stepping down, raising the possibility that a non-American might be chosen for the first time to head the 187-nation lending organisation.

Zoellick, 58, informed the board he will leave June 30 at the end of a five-year term, during which he led the bank's response to the global financial crisis.

The board now begins looking for a new president under guide-lines directors adopted in 2011 that call for an "open, merit-based and transparent selection" process.

That suggests a break from the informal agreement that dates to the bank's founding almost 68 years ago under which the bank's president is an American, and the head of its sister institution, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), is a European.

There is no guarantee that a non-American will be chosen to again head the bank even though China is now the world's second-largest economy, and other countries with growing economic clout have been exerting pressure for a change in the United States-European arrangement.

The IMF was supposed to follow the same open selection guidelines when it searched for a new managing director last year, but wound up again choosing a European, former French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde.

The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries.

Americans mentioned as possibilities to succeed Zoellick Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. Clinton has said she was not interested in the job.

- AP