Ex-Im Announces Annual Report and Advisory Committee

In the last week, the Export-Import Bank of the U.S. (Ex-Im Bank) released its 2011 Annual Report which provides a comprehensive analysis of Ex-Im Bank’s export financing in FY 2011, which showed that, for the third-straight year, Ex-Im Bank set export finance records including overall financing that exceeded $32 billion. Additionally, Ex-Im Bank announced its 2012 Advisory Committee members who are charged with helping Ex-Im Bank review policies and programs by providing input from various sectors of the U.S. economy. Nearly half of the Committee’s members are small-business owners.

Ex-Im Bank Annual Report

In its 2011 Annual Report, Ex-Im Bank announced they had, for the first time, exceeded $32 billion in financing and supported $41.3 billion in exports at more than 3,600 U.S. companies. This financing helped support approximately 290,000 export-related American jobs.

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, the report pointed to Ex-Im Bank’s Global Access for Small Business initiative which hosted 4,000 participants from across the country.
While Ex-Im Bank is open for business in 175 countries, they have identified nine key markets as the primary focus of its outreach: Brazil, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa, Turkey and Vietnam. The focus on these companies is due to projected economic growth, anticipated infrastructure demand and need for Ex-Im financing in each market. This emphasis resulted in infrastructure-related financing of $23 billion, more than a 130 percent increase over FY 2008.

Ex-Im Bank Advisory Committee

Announced last week, Ex-Im Bank has named eight new members to its 2012 Advisory Committee, which was Congressionally-established 29 years ago. Returning member Nelson Cunningham, managing partner of McLarty Associates, will chair the committee.

The primary function of the Committee is to provide Ex-Im Bank staff with input from various industries in order to help the Bank best increase U.S. exports and create jobs. Of particular note is the fact that eight of the Committee’s 17 members come from small businesses.