By Madeline Chambers

BERLIN, June 14 (Reuters) - World Bank presidential nominee Robert Zoellick suggested on Thursday he would try to get China to listen to Western worries that it was exploiting investment opportunities in Africa while ignoring corruption there.

China has used its economic weight to invest in Africa but has drawn criticism from Western aid groups that it fosters misrule by failing to demand accountability.

Zoellick, the only candidate so far to succeed Paul Wolfowitz who quit as World Bank President last month over an ethics scandal, was asked by reporters how concerned he was by China's growing influence in Africa.

He replied that he hoped to deepen the Bank's relationship with China.

"I have worked a lot with China over the years and I find it at a very interesting point. It is intensely focused on national interests .. but I think they are willing to see a broader sense of national interests," Zoellick told reporters in Berlin.

The nominee was in the German capital as part of a tour of African and European countries before his confirmation.

Beijing was aware it could enhance relations with the United States and Europe if it used its new ties to wield political clout with African governments, said Zoellick.

Pointing to Sudan, he said Western nations would like China, which buys most of Sudan's oil, to push Khartoum on issues such as accepting an African Union and United Nations peacekeeping force.

It has taken months of diplomatic wrangling for Sudan to agree to a combined peacekeeping force in its troubled Darfur region.

Zoellick said he would look at how the World Bank could work with China to boost transparency and also said Gulf and Arab states would play an increasingly important role in development.

"Helping the modernisers succeed in the developing world in the Islamic world is going to be very significant," he said.

Zoellick singled out Egypt and countries with big investment funds such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

"It will be key to think where the World Bank is a leader, catalyst, coordinator and where it has a support role," he said.

Zoellick brushed off criticism from Russian President Vladimir Putin, who said on Sunday the World Bank and similar bodies were irrelevant in a fast-changing global economy.

"I'm not sure I would look to him first for reform models but I think he is saying -- in his own, somewhat spicy way -- is that the international system is changing and everything I say recognises that," said Zoellick.

He appeared lukewarm on an aid package to Africa from Group of Eight leaders last week, saying simply officials had sought to reasure him there was no slackening of interest in Africa.

Aid groups criticised the G8's $60 billion pledge to fight AIDS and other diseases, saying there was little new cash.

"It is vitally important to keep Africa front centre on the agenda because there are tremendous opportunities and also fragility," said Zoellick.

(Berlin Newsroom, +49 30 2888 5230, madeline.chambers@reuters.com, editing by Richard Balmforth)

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