News

Washington, D.C. - Yesterday the board of directors of the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) held a meeting to receive reports from the Small Business Division and Enterprise Risk Committee.

In the small business update, Amy Shinkman, vice president for Export Credit Insurance at EXIM said, "It is exciting to help smaller companies have access to export credit insurance in order to support EXIM's mission of increasing jobs through exports."

Jim Burrows, senior vice president of the Office of Small Business, noted that, since the EXIM board was sworn in on May 9, through the close of business on Friday, December 13, the agency has authorized roughly 1,132 small business transactions totaling $1.244 billion in authorizations and supporting approximately 9,210 American jobs. Shinkman reported that 88 percent of EXIM's authorizations in Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 were short-term export credit insurance policies.

"As we saw with the Bureau of Labor Statistics' report last week, the U.S. economy added an impressive 266,000 jobs in November. The Trump Administration's pro-growth policies are ensuring that businesses continue to thrive, and EXIM stands ready to help our nation's small business that seek to thrive through exports," said EXIM President and Chairman Kimberly A. Reed. "One of the goals outlined in our just-released revised Strategic Plan for FY 2018 - 2022 is EXIM's commitment to increasing engagement with small and medium-sized businesses as they seek to export their outstanding 'Made in the USA' goods and services around the world. The discussion at our board meeting yesterday shows the great work EXIM has already done, and we are excited to do even more to support small businesses in 2020."

"Small businesses exporting for the first time are most likely to experience challenges in procuring insurance for transactions that are too small for the private insurance market to provide," said EXIM Board Member Spencer Bachus III. "One common denominator of the small businesses I've visited is they are experiencing impressive growth and adding employees in a challenging market."

"Ms. Shinkman's report highlights the great work EXIM has done in supporting American small businesses. It's clear the Office of Small Business is committed to ensuring exporters have the necessary tools to succeed as they look to new markets," said EXIM Board Member Judith Pryor. "I would like to see greater exports to sub-Saharan Africa, in line with our congressional mandate. To that end, I look forward to working with the small business team to further educate American exporters about the ways EXIM can be supportive as they look to grow in key international markets, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa which is home to seven of the top 10 growth markets."

Also during the meeting, the board of directors approved changes to EXIM's Country Limitation Schedule (CLS) that are effective December 23, 2019. The changes will be reflected at that time on EXIM's website (https://www.exim.gov/tools-for-exporters/country-limitation-schedule). The CLS is a document that expresses whether EXIM is open or closed for business in a given market. Country conditions in markets in which EXIM is open must meet EXIM's Charter-mandated requirement of a reasonable assurance of repayment. EXIM's board has established a linkage between the reasonable assurance of repayment mandate and the country risk ratings from the Interagency Country Risk Assessment System implemented by the Office of Management and Budget. These ratings, which are subject to routine evaluation, reflect the repayment risk of doing business in a market and are required to be used by all U.S. government agencies engaged in cross-border credit activities to estimate expected loss. With this update, EXIM is open for business in 191 countries.

ABOUT EXIM:

EXIM is an independent federal agency that promotes and supports American jobs by providing competitive and necessary export credit to overseas purchasers of U.S. goods and services. A robust EXIM can level the global playing field for U.S. exporters when they compete against foreign companies that receive support from their governments. EXIM also contributes to U.S. economic growth by helping to create and sustain hundreds of thousands of jobs in exporting businesses and their supply chains across the United States. In FY 2019, over 89 percent of EXIM's transactions - more than 2,100 - directly supported American small businesses. Since 1992, EXIM has generated more than $9 billion for the U.S. Treasury for repayment of U.S. debt.