News

Financial resources available to assist local small and medium-sized Connecticut businesses interested in expanding their export sales to Africa will be highlighted by Jackie Clegg, vice chair of the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank), at a luncheon on Monday, October 30, 2000, at the Hartford Club in Hartford, Conn. Ms. Clegg will give an overview of Ex-Im Bank's financing programs and discuss its activity and outreach efforts in Africa.

In FY2000, Ex-Im Bank authorized $1.294 billion in financing for U.S. exports to Africa and the Middle East ($733.4 million for the continent of Africa alone). The luncheon, sponsored by First International Bank, HSBC Equator Bank and the State of Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development, is open to the press.

In Connecticut over the past five years, Ex-Im Bank has helped 117 companies in 61 communities to export more than $1.1 billion of goods and services to foreign markets, sustaining an estimated 16,360 jobs. Fifty-six 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 emerging markets throughout the world by providing loans, loan guarantees, and export credit insurance.