French ECA cooperation agreements
(BPIFrance, Paris) This Bpifrance web page explains how national ECAs can cooperate to support projects involving exports from several countries, thus enhancing official ECA "subsidies" for corporate exporters. "Bpifrance Assurance Export interacts regularly with foreign export credit agencies at General Meetings and seminars of the Bern Union or at bilateral meetings, in the interest of exchanging and sharing best practices and expanding cooperation. With the internationalisation of production systems and increasingly frequent use of foreign sub contractors and providers, a single project can involve exports from several countries. For that reason, export support agencies have developed several forms of cooperation (joint insurance, co insurance, reinsurance) aimed at serving French exporters involved in a given project or contract in a third country. Thus, when certain contracts include a significant foreign content that make them ineligible for State support, insurance can be obtained through one of these mechanisms. Bpifrance Assurance Export has signed framework agreements with the majority of its peers. Where it does not already have a framework agreement with a given partner, a cooperation agreement may be entered into on a special purpose basis. Reinsurance is the most common form of cooperation used today.