Kann M. Finkelston, senior country manager, China and Mongolia, of International Finance Corporation (IFC), has been working on projects in China since 1997. Founded in 1956, IFC is a private sector arm of the World Bank Group. It has 175 member countries proriding share capital and China holds 1.03 percent of the shares. China is IFC's ninth largest country portfolio. Since the corporation's first investment in China in 1985,it has approved investment in 74 projects with total financing of US$1.7 billion as of June 2004.