Baku, Azerbaijan, May 24
By Fatih Karimov – Trend:
The Export Guarantee Fund of Iran (EGFI) has signed a cooperation document with Export-Import Bank of the Slovak Republic (Eximbanka SR), Slovakia’s official export credit agency.
The memorandum of understanding was signed by Kamal Seyyed Ali, head of the EGFI and Dušan Keketi chairman of the Eximbanka SR, on the sidelines of the Berne Union Spring Meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, the Iranian Industry, Mine and Trade Ministry’s SHATA news website reported.
The Berne Union, also known as the International Union of Credit and Investment Insurers, is an international non-profit association and community for the global export credit and investment insurance industry.
Iran became a member of the Berne Union in May 2016.
Under the MoU, the EGFI and Eximbanka SR will cooperate for facilitating trade and in exchange of economic, banking, and insurance information.
The EGFI has signed similar documents with Germany’s Hermes, which offers export credit guarantee (ECG), and Swiss Export Risk Insurance (SERV) as well as the Hungarian Export Credit Insurance Plc (MEHIB), the Portuguese export credit agency (COSEC), Sri Lanka Export Credit Insurance Corporation (Slecic), Finland’s official export credit agency (Finnvera) and Brazilian Guarantees and Fund Managements Agency (ABGF) in recent months.
During the meeting, Seyyed Ali expressed hope that signing the cooperation documents will contribute for upgrading Iran’s risk rating in the near future.
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has classified Iran at Level 6, though Iranian officials expect an upgrade to Level 4.
Seyyed Ali further said that mutual banking and insurance cooperation between Iran and Slovakia will increase in the near future, thanks to opportunities created following the removal of the international sanctions against Iran last year.