Western governments suspend talks on new ECA rules

(Reuters, Washington, 20 November 2020) Eleven of 18 governments trying to negotiate new export credit rules said on Thursday they were suspending technical talks because of widely divergent positions among members and troubles with transparency. But in a joint statement, the 11 Western governments including the United States, European Union and Japan said that they remain open to a high-level meeting in a year and to discussing proposals at the vice-ministerial level. The action halts eight years of talks launched in 2012 from a joint U.S.-China initiative to try to craft new international rules on the use of official export credit agencies, that would be followed by OECD countries as well as large emerging market countries including China, India and Brazil.

In 2019, China provided more than three times the amount of official medium- and long-term export credits than the next closest provider, according to the Ex-Im Bank's annual competitiveness report. The top 10 providers, in order, were: China ($33.5 billion), Italy ($11.1 billion), Germany ($10.5 billion), India ($7.0 billion), the United Kingdom ($6.6 billion), France ($6.2 billion), Korea ($5.8 billion), the United States ($5.3 billion), Finland ($4.1 billion), and Sweden ($4.0 billion).