OECD Export Credit Updates

A. Review of the Common Approaches on Environment and export credits
  A. Review of the Common Approaches on Environment and export credits
OECD ECAs will enter another round of negotiations on a revised Recommendation on Common Approaches on Environment and Export Credits during the week of November 13th, 2006. A draft text has been shared with ECA Watch for comment, a welcome indication of increased transparency on the part of the OECD Working Group on Export Credits. ECA Watch is extremely concerned however, that while negotiations are underway, a number of ECAs are actively considering support for projects such as the Ilisu and Yusufeli dams in Turkey, the Sakhalin II oil and gas project in eastern Russia and the Camisea II pipeline and LNG project in Peru. Their own consultants and EIAs clearly show serious violations of the existing Common Approaches standards which would trigger the derogation clause in the Recommendation if they approve the projects, risking the credibility of the whole review process. ECA Watch has also learned that some ECAs are pressing for improvements, while certain others are actively lobbying for the removal of a number of improvements currently in the draft text.
  B. More questions re OECD export credit monitoring statistics
(ECA Watch, Paris, 30 October 2006) Weak or non existant OECD peer review of ECA subsidies due to undervalued premiums and interest rates would appear to jeapordize OECD and WTO provisions that require ECAs to break even in the long run.