U.S. EXIM Bank chief plans ‘aggressive’ marketing push, eyes steady volume growth

By David Lawder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Export-Import Financial institution plans “aggressive” measures to revive its standing within the enterprise group and to bump up credit score volumes operating at roughly 1 / 4 of their ranges from 2014 earlier than it was hobbled first by Congress after which a world pandemic, the financial institution’s new president stated.

In that span, EXIM pale within the minds of shoppers and international governments – and lots of merely by no means obtained to understand it, Reta Jo Lewis advised Reuters on Wednesday. She plans to repair that with an “EXIM 101” schooling program to introduce new industries and small companies to the lender’s providers and rebuild its relationships with international governments and U.S. exporters.

Furthermore, Lewis, the primary individual of shade to go the 88-year-old export credit score company, stated she goals to steadily construct up EXIM’s lending totals “on a deal-by-deal foundation.”

“The vital factor that I’ve seen is that whereas we had been out of the market, you realize, others stepped in. So meaning that we have got to be aggressive,” Lewis stated. “We have got to be on the market assembly giant, small and medium-sized firms to allow them to know that EXIM has this financing instrument that they will use.”

Republicans in Congress in July 2015 sought to completely shutter EXIM, charging it was offering “company welfare” by means of low-cost export financing for Boeing, Basic Electrical, Caterpillar and different company giants.

Its constitution was restored after 4 months, however Republicans blocked EXIM board nominees for 4 extra years, limiting it to loans of $10 million or much less and shutting it out of the marketplace for plane and main infrastructure initiatives.

In the course of the void, GE was amongst U.S. companies that turned elsewhere, agreeing in 2015 to maneuver manufacturing https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-exim-ge-idCNL1N11Y0Z620150928 of oilfield fuel generator engines to Canada from Waukesha, Wisconsin, in a deal to entry Canadian export financing, costing 236 U.S. manufacturing jobs.

A spokesperson for Austrian-based Innio Group, which acquired these services when it purchased GE’s distributed energy enterprise in 2018, stated the agency wouldn’t be in search of EXIM financing help.

After its full lending powers had been restored in 2019, different setbacks got here from the COVID-19 pandemic’s hit to export demand, and halts in plane deliveries for Boeing, historically EXIM’s largest buyer, following the 737 MAX grounding and 787 manufacturing issues.

CHINA CHALLENGE

In the meantime, China has continued to dwarf EXIM’s efforts, offering $11 billion in official medium and long-term export credit score in 2021, in contrast with $2.2 billion for the USA, in line with EXIM’s annual competitiveness report https://img.exim.gov/s3fs-public/oig/experiences/EXIM_2021_Competitiveness_Report.pdf.

Together with short-term offers for working capital finance and credit score insurance coverage, EXIM in fiscal 2021 licensed $5.8 billion whole help – far beneath its $20.7 billion quantity in 2014.

Lewis, who marks her one hundredth day on the job on Thursday, stated she doesn’t have a particular quantity goal for EXIM, however desires to see larger numbers annually – an indication that “American firms are successful.”

She stated a $600 billion private-sector-led infrastructure push from G7 nations introduced final week to rival China’s Belt and Street program, together with $200 billion from the USA, represents a big alternative to win new prospects.

The fomer State Division official and congressional affairs director for the German Marshall Fund stated she plans a visit to Africa to satisfy with officers and companies later this yr.

EXIM has additionally launched a transformational exports program https://www.exim.gov/about/special-initiatives/ctep to compete with China in key rising export areas comparable to biomedical expertise, renewable power and quantum computing.

However reaching into new industries and extra small companies requires EXIM to take a extra proactive method to advertising, she stated.

“We will not simply sit again and simply anticipate (enterprise) to stroll within the door. That is an old-school technique,” she stated. “We have got to be speaking to industries throughout this nation and throughout this world about what it’s that we do.”

(Reporting by David Lawder; Enhancing by Dan Burns and Diane Craft)