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Southwest Windpower Inc., a small business manufacturer of battery-charging wind-powered generators with factories in Flagstaff, Ariz., and Duluth, Minn., is one of four U.S. companies that is featured in the fiscal year 2002 annual report of the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank), released today in Washington, D.C. In May 2002, the 50-employee company was also named as Ex-Im Bank's 2002 Small Business Exporter of the Year.

Southwest Windpower has used Ex-Im Bank's environmental export credit insurance since 1996 to sell its products to small foreign distributors in developing markets, including Brazil, Turkey, India and South Africa, among others. Ex-Im Bank's insurance enables the company to offer its foreign buyers open account terms, which enables buyers to place larger orders.

The results have been tremendous, Andrew Kruse, vice president of Southwest Windpower said. Last year, more than 50 percent of our revenues came from export sales. Our products are sold in more than 50 countries. Ex-Im Bank is a strategic partner in expanding our export sales.

Kruse is a member of Ex-Im Bank's Renewable Energy Exports Advisory Committee, established in 2002 to assist Ex-Im Bank in expanding financing support for U.S. exporters in renewable energy industries such as solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric and biomass.

In the past 16 years, the company has produced more than 60,000 wind generators to produce electricity on telecommunications towers, remote homes and schools, off-shore platforms, and a variety of other applications.

Ex-Im Bank is the official U.S. export credit agency that helps finance the sales of U.S. exports, primarily to developing markets, by providing loans, guarantees and export credit insurance. In FY 2002, Ex-Im Bank helped to support nearly $13 billion of U.S. exports worldwide.