EX-IM BANK SUPPORTS SOUTH CAROLINA COMPANY'S SALE OF GAS EQUIPMENT TO MALI
WASHINGTON, D.C.- The Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) has approved a $4 million medium-term guarantee to help a South Carolina company and 15 suppliers export a butane and natural gas storage and bottling system to a buyer in Mali.
Applied Engineering Systems (AES), LLC, of Johns Island, S.C., is providing both equipment and engineering services that will enable people in Mali to use clean-burning gas instead of wood for cooking and heating. Maybank Logistics Management System LLC of Charleston, S.C., is procuring the equipment from AES, and suppliers include small and large businesses in South Carolina and North Carolina. The buyer and borrower is Societe N'Diaye St. Frere (SARL) (SNF), in Bamako, Mali, and the lender is PNC Bank of Pittsburgh, Penn.
This transaction demonstrates how a single export can benefit very different people in very different corners of the world, Ex-Im Bank Chairman Philip Merrill said. Ex-Im Bank is pleased to support a transaction that involves workers at a number of U.S. companies while at the same time improving the lives of the Malian people.
Ex-Im Bank is playing a major role in expanding U.S.-African trade. Last year, the Bank helped finance a record $700 million in U.S. exports to sub-Saharan Africa.
Ex-Im Bank this year marks its 70th year of helping finance the sale of U.S. exports, primarily to emerging markets throughout the world, by providing loan guarantees, export credit insurance, and direct loans. In fiscal year 2003, Ex-Im Bank, an independent federal agency, authorized financing to support $14.3 billion of U.S. exports worldwide. For more information on Ex-Im Bank, visit www.exim.gov.