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WASHINGTON, D.C. — Aquatech International Corporation, an exporter of water purification solutions headquartered in Canonsburg, Penn., is to receive the 2009 Small Business Exporter of the Year award from the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) at the Bank's 75th anniversary annual conference in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, April 16.

Aquatech's use of Ex-Im Bank's working capital loan guarantee program has grown from $1 million to $37 million over a 15-year period as the green technology company expanded sales of industrial water and wastewater treatment solutions and services to buyers around the world — and maintained and created U.S. jobs in the process. Aquatech's water treatment technology offerings involve zero liquid discharge treatment, water reuse, and desalination.

Ex-Im Bank recently renewed, at $37 million, its guarantee of Aquatech's revolving loan facility from PNC Bank, Pittsburgh, Penn. The facility consolidates two earlier Ex-Im Bank facilities covering ongoing Aquatech export business, including sales to Italy's largest power company and a major oil field project in Oman. The facility also will support new Aquatech projects around the world, including the Western Hemisphere, Middle East, and Asia-Pacific region.

In today's challenging global economic environment, Ex-Im Bank support of our exports gives us opportunities that we otherwise would not have, said Aquatech President and CEO Venkee Sharma. The Ex-Im Bank facility allows us to serve buyers in many different countries, like Saudi Arabia, India and China, that are less hit by recession. Exports make up 40 to 60 percent of our business, and these sales have helped us create and maintain jobs at Aquatech. Ex-Im Bank has had a positive impact on our continued growth.

This minority-owned small business exemplifies the creativity and determination that Ex-Im Bank exists to support, especially during the current economic crisis, said Diane Farrell, a member of Ex-Im Bank's board of directors. Because of its export growth and its support of U.S. jobs, Aquatech well deserves Ex-Im Bank's Small Business Exporter of the Year Award.

Hopefully Aquatech's success will inspire and motivate more small businesses to learn how they can similarly benefit from Ex-Im Bank financing products, said John Richter, senior vice president, Small Business. The vast majority of our transactions support small business exports.

Ex-Im Bank's 34th annual conference on April 16-17 will be held at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C. The award ceremony will take place after the April 16 luncheon program which begins at 12:30 p.m.

For more information on Ex-Im Bank and the annual conference, including the current agenda, and to register online to attend, visit www.exim.gov.

Ex-Im Bank is the official export-credit agency of the United States. The independent, self-sustaining federal agency, now celebrating its 75th anniversary, helps create and maintain U.S. jobs by financing 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 2008, Ex-Im Bank authorized $3.2 billion more than 22 percent of total authorizations in direct support of U.S. small businesses as primary exporters. The Bank approved 2,328 transactions for the direct benefit of small business exporters, representing 86 percent of the total number of transactions approved. In addition, an estimated $1.1 billion of Ex-Im Bank's long-term authorizations is attributable to indirect small business exports — goods or services that are sold by U.S. small businesses to other U.S. companies and subsequently exported.