UK Export Finance helps 650 UK businesses to sell overseas

• UK Export Finance offered £8.8 billion in new financing final 12 months, serving to 650 UK firms to export.

• As much as 41,000 jobs and £3.3 billion to nationwide GDP supported by UKEF’s provision of monetary help for UK exporters.

• Detailed in UKEF’s new annual report for 2023 to 2024, help for UK companies helps turbocharge the economic system and ship development alternatives throughout the nation.

A whole lot of UK companies benefited from £8.8 billion in help underwritten by UK Export Finance (UKEF) within the monetary 12 months 2023/24.

Because the UK authorities’s export credit score company, UKEF offers loans, ensures and insurance coverage to assist companies promote their merchandise world wide.

UKEF’s help within the final monetary 12 months enabled 650 UK firms to win or ship export contracts final 12 months – a mean of just about two companies securing essential export financing day by day of the 12 months.

It’s estimated that the UKEF-backed exercise of those companies and their suppliers contributes as much as £3.3 billion in the direction of UK GDP and helps as much as 41,000 FTE jobs. 

Over half of the companies supported by UKEF had been small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), one thing enabled by the company’s work making its commerce finance merchandise extra accessible. Final 12 months, for instance, UKEF elevated the worth and tenor of financing which it might routinely approve for lenders signed as much as choose assure schemes.

80% of these small companies which UKEF supported with a product had been based mostly outdoors of London, demonstrating the division’s dedication to delivering development alternatives throughout the UK.

Two assure merchandise launched by UKEF in recent times have additionally continued to assist exporters safe financing which could in any other case be out of attain:

• The Export Improvement Assure helped firms like SeAH Wind UK and UK-listed PLC Trifast to unlock massive mortgage amenities supporting funding and jobs. Thanks partly to UKEF help, SeAH is now constructing one of many world’s largest factories to help building of wind generators, while Trifast, a producer of commercial fastenings, will be capable to open a 75,000 sq. foot distribution centre within the Midlands.  

• The Normal Export Facility (GEF) unlocked over £575 million in monetary help for UK companies in 2023/24: a document for the product. Final 12 months, UKEF expanded the vary of lenders which might provide financing backed by a GEF assure.

UKEF’s worldwide affect was additionally supported by a dedication to sustainable financing. Final 12 months, UKEF grew to become the primary ECA to supply climate-resilient debt clauses, which assist small-island growing states and low-income nations reply to local weather shocks by pausing sovereign debt repayments. In December 2023, UKEF additionally grew to become a founding member of the Web Zero Export Credit score Alliance – a coalition of ECAs aiming to decarbonise export finance.

Tim Reid, CEO of UK Export Finance, mentioned:

UKEF has an important position to play in serving to UK corporations bridge any financing gaps which could be a barrier to their exporting plans. 

Our outcomes from 2023 to 2024 present that we’re stepping as much as this problem, with our highest stage of help for UK companies because the finish of the COVID pandemic and our largest ever quantity of financing assured by way of our GEF product – a cornerstone of our providing to small companies.

Successes like these are half and parcel of the federal government’s work to make sure a steady and rising economic system.

Whereas a lot of UKEF’s financing isn’t particular to particular person export contracts, it did help a excessive quantity of contract-specific enterprise with African consumers (£1.3 billion), adopted by the Center East (£419.5 million) and Indo-Pacific (£376 million), reflecting the sturdy commerce hyperlinks between these areas and the UK.

Marcus Dolman, Vice-President of the British Exporters Affiliation (BExA), mentioned:

Progress in worldwide commerce is vital in rising the UK economic system. UK exporters want a authorities centered on commerce to assist them obtain this development. We’re delighted to see that UKEF continues to ship spectacular outcomes.

Their help in offering monetary merchandise to exporters and their abroad clients is vital to offering a low-risk setting for UK firms to export in.

BExA is happy to see the continued sturdy help for SMEs as entry to finance is usually cited as a barrier to export. We and our members stay up for persevering with to work with UKEF to realize the goals of their marketing strategy and to high-quality tune and develop their product vary to drive UK export development.

Marco Forgione, Director Normal of the Chartered Institute for Export & Worldwide Commerce, mentioned:

UK companies have monumental potential and are recognised world wide for his or her high quality. That’s the reason the Chartered Institute of Export & Worldwide Commerce is devoted to empowering companies with the talents and data they want to make sure that they’ll commerce successfully, sustainably and competitively world wide.

Making trusted worldwide commerce simpler and serving to extra UK companies increase their worldwide markets is central to getting development into the UK economic system. UKEF’s newest annual report is a welcome signal that supporting exporters of all sizes continues to be a precedence for the federal government.

In April, UKEF launched its new 2024-29 Enterprise Plan, which incorporates formidable targets for growing the dimensions, scope and affect of its help by 2029. The division is aiming to help over 1,000 small and medium enterprises a 12 months by the tip of the last decade.