News

D. Vanessa Weaver, a board member of the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) will discuss financing tools available to help small and medium-sized New Mexico businesses expand their export sales on Thursday, April 19, at San Juan College's Quality Center for Business, Farmington, NM. Weaver will give an overview of Ex-Im Bank's financing programs and discuss ways local San Juan county firms large and small and local bankers can use these programs to compete in emerging foreign markets.

Weaver will be joined by U.S. Rep. Tom Udall D-N.M., third district, who will discuss economic development opportunities in New Mexico. In his second term in the U.S. House of Representatives, Udall has fought to bring economic development to New Mexico and to provide access to capital for people who want to become entrepreneurs. Udall has worked to make loans and grants available for New Mexico's rural communities. He is the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Rural Enterprises, Agriculture, and Technology. The event, sponsored by the San Juan Economic Development Service, is opened to the press.

In New Mexico over the past five years, Ex-Im Bank has supported seven companies in five communities in exporting $6.7 million of goods and services to foreign markets. This has helped to sustain an estimated 97 jobs. More than 70 percent of these transactions supported small businesses.

Ex-Im Bank is an independent U.S. government agency that assists in financing the export of U.S. goods and services to markets around the world, through export credit insurance, loan guarantees, and direct loans. In fiscal year 2000, Ex-Im Bank helped to finance nearly $15.5 billion of U.S. exports worldwide.