This meeting witnessed the presence of Presidents and CEO of 11 Export credit agencies (ECA), members of Forum, representatives of ADB and other guest observers institutions as UK export finance, Export development finance (an ECA of Canada government), Abu Dhabi Exports office.
This 25th AEBF annual meeting is chance for top leaders of forum members to discuss the topic namely “Facing new decade: revisiting Asian ECA’s role in the shifting Global economic Landscape” and experience and development directives of their own organizations in the near future. In the time to come, Asian countries will face multiple challenges, to name a few such as global economy’s uncertainties, financial crisis at large scale, prevailing and stronger protectionism causing negative impact on export activities, escalating and prolonged USA-China trade war, etc. So each ECA has to be more proactive, flexible and to build up for itself appropriate strategies to ensure its sustainability. Some strategies may be taken into consideration such as diversify their financial services and products to meet with the new demand from export companies, change from lender of last resort to proactive deal marker with focus on national interest instead of national origin (a switch from Made in export products financing to Made by export products financing). In other hand, ECA sustainability shall be maintained by a better risk management system, financial soundness and fund safety use.
At the meeting, VDB has presented its features and development strategies in the future. Having stopped acting as short-term export financing, as a policy bank of the government, VDB still provides with a great volume of credit to finance large scale development projects, mostly for equipment import. For this, in the recent time, VDB has been very active in the Forum and is a key partner of many ECAs. Being aware of its challenges in the near future, VDB has made necessary preparations including restructure its activities on the basis of the restructure project approved by the PM and implemented in synchrony different measures to ensure its safety. VDB expressed also its strong desires to foster cooperation in term of fund and technical assistance with AEBF’s members to serve VDB’s activities and interests of its partners./.