Australia's export credit agency could fund offshoring of jobs

(Guardian Australia, 16 January 2017) Australia’s export credit agency could end up financing companies that have axed their domestic workforces to manufacture more cheaply overseas, a Senate inquiry has been told. The Export Finance and Insurance Corporation could become instrumental in the “further offshoring of Australian manufacturing” under draft laws proposed by the Coalition that would scrap the requirement to fund only exporters that manufacture “substantially or wholly in Australia”. Jubilee Australia, warned in its published submission that the government’s proposed reforms fell short of what was needed to make a secretive agency accountable in light of its chequered record financing overseas mining projects linked to civil strife and environmental degradation.