Question to the Department for International Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what estimate she has made of the number of SMEs that have started exporting overseas following support through (a) the Small Deals Initiative and (b) other UK Export Finance support.

The Small Deals initiative was set up in October 2017 and supported its first transaction in August 2018. Since then it has supported a further six, with a further one anticipated during the current financial year. Of those deals, 57% have involved Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise (SMEs) exporters.

During the last five financial years, UK Export Finance (UKEF) has supported the following total numbers of exporters:

2018/19 262

2017/18 191

2016/17 221

2015/16 226

Consistently over 70% of businesses directly supported by UKEF are SMEs. In addition, many transactions involving larger businesses further support the UK supply chain, which includes significant numbers of SMEs.