Bulletin Board

State And Federal Governments Form Export Partnerships

The Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) recently launched a new program to expedite the loan guarantee process for small and midsized firms involved in exporting.

The Working Capital Co-Guarantee Program is a one-year pilot effort operating in California, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts and Minnesota that enables designated state export programs to approve guarantees on behalf of the federal government. This can shave weeks off the approval process and gives entrepreneurs an additional resource for financial backing.

Ex-Im Bank and the state will split between them 90 percent of a commercial working capital loan guarantee, with the remaining 10 percent of risk covered by the lender.

For more information, contact the California Export Finance Program, (714) 562-5519; the Florida Export Finance Corp., (305) 870-5027; the Georgia Export Finance Fund, (404) 657-1958; the Maryland Export Finance Program, (410) 767-6382; the Massachusetts Export Finance Authority, (617) 451-2477; and the Minnesota Export Finance Authority, (612) 297-4658.

This article was originally published in the January 1997 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Bulletin Board.