2017 Report to the U.S. Congress on Global Export Credit Competition

(EXIM, Washington, June 2018) This recently "discovered" 77 page report represents the second consecutive year in which the Competitiveness Report focuses on the changes other export credit agencies (ECAs) are making to enhance their competitiveness and the impact that EXIM’s absence from the LT market is having on the U.S. export community. To these points, the 2017 Competitiveness Report contains the following findings:

1.  Outside of the United States, ECAs are no longer viewed predominately as transaction-oriented, reactive lenders of last resort. Instead, foreign ECAs are increasingly being “weaponized”—specifically organized and equipped to be maximally flexible and proactive in order to incentivize a shift in sourcing or support trade policy, particularly in key industries.
2. The continued competitive pressure applied by the scale and flexibility of the Asian ECAs, particularly those from China, feeds the “sea change” in Europe among governments seeking to reinvent export credit support as their economies become more dependent on exports for growth
3. ECAs are using new programs and flexibilities to compete. Prevalent tools include (a) “pump-priming” programs under which an ECA identifies a foreign company that could import more from the ECA’s country and offers these companies what is essentially a line of credit
4. The change in stance among ECAs is taking place in a marketplace populated by ever-wider participation from other suppliers of commercial financing
5. As reported by stakeholders, EXIM’s absence has disproportionately hurt smaller U.S. sub-suppliers along the supply chains of large exporters.