WASHINGTON: The Export-Import Bank of India is getting a $60 million international trade facility to help support export-focused small and medium enterprises, which have suffered reduced access to finance due to global financial crisis.
The trade facility, shared equally by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank group, and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, will improve the Exim Bank's ability to provide access to short-term trade funding for smaller businesses, enabling them to carry out export orders.
The transaction follows the signing of a memorandum of cooperation between IFC and G-NEXID, an organisation of emerging-market export credit agencies and development institutions focused on trade between developing countries in May.
Exim Bank is playing a significant role in providing competitive trade finance for India's export sector, with a special focus on small and medium enterprises, given their reduced access to foreign-currency financing amid the ongoing global financial crisis, an IFC release said.
"This important transaction with our longstanding partners, IFC and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, will help us provide short-term foreign-currency trade finance," said TC Venkat Subramanian, chairman and managing director of the Exim Bank.
"We hope it will also encourage other lenders to return to the Indian market and resume normal lending operations to Indian financial institutions."
Source : The Economic Times