Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask His Majesty's Government what are the criteria for UK Export Finance to increase the provision of financial support for investment in Argentina.

UK Export Finance (UKEF) maintains a rigorous credit due diligence framework, to ensure that it abides by its mandate to operate at no net cost to the taxpayer over time.

UKEF assesses each country in which it has an actual or potential credit exposure, using methodologies that are widely used in the commercial sector and draw on a range of external factors, and assigns a credit rating.

As a result of this assessment, UKEF’s business in Argentina and Nigeria is currently limited to medium or long-term projects that are foreign exchange earning (i.e. projects that generate revenue in currencies other than that of the destination country itself, and are structured in a way that reduces the credit risks to UKEF), and short term insurance and guarantees (again, subject to robust credit risk mitigants being in place). We regularly refresh our credit risk due diligence, and should the circumstances, change, UKEF would be able to offer a wider set of products in support of exports to Nigeria and Argentina.