Ex-Im Bank Issues 2011 Annual Report, Marks Another Record-Breaking Year

Financing Exceeds $32 Billion for the First Time, Fueled by Dramatic Rise in Key Industries and Markets

WASHINGTON, Dec. 20, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) released its 2011 Annual Report, a comprehensive analysis of Ex-Im Bank's export financing in fiscal year 2011. For the third-straight year, Ex-Im Bank set export finance records including overall financing that for the first time exceeded $32 billion and supported $41.3 billion in exports at more than 3,600 U.S. companies, helping to support approximately 290,000 export-related American jobs.

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"Creating opportunities for American companies, and American workers, to compete and win in a challenging global marketplace is our top priority at the Ex-Im Bank," said Fred P. Hochberg, Ex-Im chairman and president. "Our financing of U.S. exports supports good-paying American jobs that sustain communities. We are driven by dedication, leadership, and expertise that produced a record-breaking year."

Small Business
Small business financing rose over 70 percent from $3.3 billion in FY 2008 to $6 billion in FY 2011 and is up almost $1 billion from last year. As part of its efforts to increase this portfolio, Ex-Im Bank's Global Access for Small Business initiative has held more than 20 forums across the country this year, reaching 4,000 participants. For more information on Ex-Im Bank's small business transactions, please visit: http://www.exim.gov/sbgport/SB_success.cfm

Key Industries 
Ex-Im Bank is focusing on a number of industries with high potential for U.S. export growth: agribusiness, aircraft and avionics, construction, medical technologies, mining, oil and gas, and power generation, including renewable energy. These industries support the critical needs of a growing number of middle-class consumers in emerging and other global markets that offer U.S. exporters some of their best opportunities for sales growth.

In particular, infrastructure-related financing reached $23.0 billion, more than a 130 percent increase over FY 2008, the same growth rate as the Bank's authorizations overall. This was a direct result of the Bank's emphasis on nine developing countries with rapidly growing infrastructure needs. 

The transportation sector for FY 2011 volume was $13.2 billion, up from $5.6 billion in FY 2008. Authorizations for environmentally-beneficial exports more than tripled from $227 million in FY 2008 to $889 million in FY 2011; and authorizations for renewable-energy exports increased to $721 million in FY 2011 from $30.4 million in FY 2008. Ex-Im Bank was one of the largest financiers of solar projects to India at $180 million.

Key Markets
Ex-Im Bank is open for business in 175 countries.  However, the Bank has identified nine key markets as the primary focus of its outreach: Brazil, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa, Turkey and Vietnam.

These countries were selected using a number of factors, including the size of the export markets for U.S. companies, projected economic growth, anticipated infrastructure demand and need for Ex-Im financing in each market.

The projected investment in infrastructure across these countries over the next five years is more than $2 trillion. This increased demand for products and services will help small and large U.S. exporters in many sectors to maintain current employment levels and create a significant number of new jobs.

The Bank is implementing outreach plans for each market that include targeted private-sector and public-sector buyers, financial institutions and government agencies.

In FY 2011, the Bank showed substantial increases in several of these markets. For example, export financing for sub-Saharan Africa was nearly 1.4 billion for the first time, supporting 8% of all U.S. exports to sub-Saharan Africa. Authorizations for exports to Colombia increased to $3.7 billion from $66 million, supporting 34% of overall U.S. exports.

Among the Bank's nine key countries, Colombia, India, South Africa, and Turkey have shown impressive increases compared to FY 2008. Export financing for India increased to $2.9 billion from $1 billion, rising to first in Bank authorizations and exposure in the Asian regional exposure while it had ranked 10th in Asia regional authorizations in FY 2010.

About Ex-Im Bank:
Ex-Im Bank is an independent federal agency that helps create and maintain U.S. jobs by filling gaps in private export financing at no cost to American taxpayers.

In the past five years, Ex-Im Bank has earned for U.S. taxpayers $1.9 billion above the cost of operations. The Bank provides a variety of financing mechanisms, including working capital guarantees, export-credit insurance and financing to help foreign buyers purchase U.S. goods and services. For more information, visit www.exim.gov.

SOURCE Export-Import Bank of the United States