Chairman Lee Duk-hoon of Korea Eximbank

The Export-Import Bank of Korea plans to tighten its overseas operation by setting up regional head offices to oversee the overseas offices located around the world. Officials of the state-run bank said regional meetings will be held at least once a year to discuss regional strategies for tight management of those overseas offices of the bank. Regional offices and the bank officers assigned to international financial organizations are required to report to the heads of the regional head offices. 

Regional head offices will be set up in Hanoi, Vietnam, for Asia, in Mexico City, Mexico, for South and Central America, and in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates for the Middle East and Africa.

Korea Eximbank will also lead the exploration of projects abroad that take advantage of the EDCF financing to be provided to 15 emerging countries based on terms of agreements signed with them. The project loans will be provided in the “Korean Packages” to help Korean firms secure projects to be financed with EDCF loans, the officials said.

The Export-Import Bank of Korea announced on Nov. 30, 2015, that the bank will provide financing to the Mesey Gateway Bridge Building Project in UK, which was awarded to Samsung C&T.

The Mesey Gateway Project, aimed at building a 2.13km-long cable-stayed bridge, amounts to 600 million pounds.

Samsung C&T (33.3 percent share of the project) formed a consortium for the design and construction with a British construction company, Kier group, and a Spanish construction company, the FCC, and won the contract in April last year. The consortium has been conducting the project since then.

Korea Eximbank will provide 100 million pounds in project financing to the project.

The funding provided to this project is Korea Eximbank's support for the Korean company's entry into the advanced British infrastructure PPP market for the first time.

This is likely to broaden opportunities for Korean companies to make inroads into the British construction market, which requires advanced technical skills and considerable experience in implementing project

The bank announced on Feb. 2 that it will commit $370 million in project financing for a petrochemical project in Liwa, Oman.

The project financing for the Liwa Petrochemical Project is notable in that its financing conditions and project structure are much more stable compared to other PFs that the bank has provided to the Middle East so far. It is attributable to the fact that the Omani government will underwrite Debt Service Undertaking (DSU) and guarantee the supply of natural gas, on behalf of ORPIC (Oman Oil Refineries and Petroleum Industries Company SAOC), the sponsor of the project.

The DSU is a guarantee released for the completion of large-scale plant construction and the repayment of the loan granted for the project, and is provided by a third party entity with a high creditworthiness, usually the project sponsor.

For this project, however, the government of Oman decided to provide the direct guarantee at the strong request of the lenders including Korea Eximbank.

A view of the building in Seoul where Korea Eximbank has offices.(Photos:Korea Eximbank)