Index for January 2012

Volume 11, Issue 1

  • (Reuters, Stockholm, 10 January 2012) The Swedish Export Credit Corporation (SEK) has for the first time issued a bond in local Chinese currency (RMB) for long-term financing of a Swedish exporters local operations in China. The transaction is a milestone in the financing of Swedish export companies. Going forward these companies will have access to much more competitive financing in RMB than they have previously had. "Until now, Swedish companies operating in China have been able to get access to local currency funding from banks in China, but it has been expensive and often not for longer periods than up to a year.
  • (Flightglobal, London, 24 January 2012) Airline finance officers need to brace for some unpleasant surprises this year as the European sovereign debt crisis and new regulations continue to cripple bank lending to the sector, and could force more financiers to withdraw funding entirely, amid fears of a fresh credit crunch... In a break from the past, airlines will find less comfort in export credit agency financings, as these dealings, becoming pricier under new regulations, also rely on bank funding. Meanwhile, Norwegian Air Shuttle placed one of Europe's biggest-ever aircraft orders in a gamble on Europe's economic recovery backed entirely by borrowings from the US Ex-Im Bank and European Export Credit Agencies.
  • (New York Times, Mother Jones, December 2011) In the United States, where the water-intensive drilling technique of fracking was invented, the government is taking a lead role in supporting the dissemination of the technology abroad, as well as promoting other energy projects... The Export-Import Bank of the United States has financed some of its biggest gas projects over the last several years, including the largest transaction in the bank’s history — $3 billion approved in 2009 for hundreds of miles of gas pipeline and a liquid natural gas plant and terminal project led by Exxon Mobil in Papua New Guinea... A significant chunk of South African Kusile coal-fired power plant's upfront financing - $805 million - came from a direct loan from the Export-Import Bank of the United States to Eskom, South Africa's state-owned electric power utility... Ex-Im is also considering financing the Braka 5,600MW Nuclear Power Plant in Western Abu Dhabi, UAE.
  • (San Antonio Express, San Antonio, 27 January 2012) A former Wells Fargo Bank loan officer was sentenced Friday to four months of jail and four months of house arrest for taking a $50,000 bribe linked to the largest fraud against the nation's official export credit agency. Gerardo Uribe, 45, was involved in the scheme that San Antonio businessman Andrew Maxwell Parker perpetrated on the Export-Import Bank of the United States, which backs commercial high-risk loans to stimulate exports of American-made goods to foreign companies.
  • (Export Credits Group, Brussels, 11 January 2012) This brief 8 page summary of the issues covered at the 534th EU Group meeting also includes some indication of issues covered at the 16-17 November 2011 OECD Export Credit Working Group meeting in Paris. The last OECD ECWG meeting "minutes" on their web site are for the 28 April 2011 meeting. The last web site record of OECD ECA meetings with stakeholders was for their 18 November 2008 meeting and their last published correspondence with stakeholders was dated December 2009. OECD ECA cash flow data to 2010 was made available on 8 December 2011.
  • (Today's Zaman, Istanbul, 24 January 2012) Turkey's state-owned export credit agency Eximbank will provide loans totaling $750 million to Tunisia and Libya in connection with efforts to support reconstruction studies in these two civil war-torn countries.
  • (The South African, London, 22 January 2012) In a significant reversal of the colonial economic process, a new gold mine opening in the middle of the United Kingdom is owned by an Australian company and the technology and expertise to process the ore will be imported from South Africa. The Director of the South African Capital Equipment Export Council estimated that with severe underutilisation of the Export Credit Insurance Corporation, if Consulmet Metals used the corporation’s facilities in the past, the company could have been doing twice its current R40-million a year by now.
  • The European Commission authorised, on 11 January, the prolongation of a Danish export credit financing scheme until 31 December 2015. The scheme was initially approved on 9 February 2010. Its prolongation is due to the financial crisis, which led several banks to exit the export credit business and the banks still active on that market to reduce their activities. If banks’ tightened liquidity position restricts them from financing a long-term export loan requested by a Danish exporter and/or its client, the Danish scheme allows them to enter into an agreement with the Danish state-owned export finance agency (EKF).