Eximbank Supports Overseas Contracted ProjectsPresident of the Export and Import Bank of China (Eximbank) Yang Zilin said Tuesday that the Eximbank will draw on its advantages as a policy bank to support Chinese enterprises to contract projects overseas.Addressing a seminar on overseas contracted projects, Yang said that the Eximbank is the most powerful backing for Chinese enterprises to make their presence overseas, and it is capable of providing huge policy financing for overseas contracted projects. He said that last year the Eximbank ratified loans of 4.27 billion yuan for overseas contracted projects, nearly triple that of 1998. By the end of last year, the bank had ratified an aggregate of 6.74 billion yuan in export sellers' credit for overseas contracted projects. In addition, the Eximbank's overseas-oriented warranty business has supported 21 overseas contracted projects, with an export contract value of 991 million U.S. dollars; and it has insured 44 such projects with a contract value of 1.125 billion U.S. dollars. These projects supported by policy finance involve 18 countries and regions. Yang said that the Eximbank's support has not only helped enterprises solve financial problems, but also help them improve financing and risk-prevention capabilities. According to related sources, the international engineering contract market is both huge in volume and intense in competition. By 2003 its total volume is expected to reach 4.1 trillion U.S. dollars. Over the past 20 years China's overseas engineering contract business has been growing at an annual average of over 30 percent, in 2000 it signed contracts valued at 11.7 billion U.S. dollars. Yang said that the Eximbank has made overseas engineering contracts the key to its export credit businesses this year, and will make efforts to raise the proportion of such credit in its total export sellers' credit from the present 11 percent to some 20 percent. |
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