Trade Agreements: Small Businesses

(asked on 12th October 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for International Trade:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to embed gap analysis into the process of negotiating free trade agreements in order to identify (1) the amount, (2) the duration, and (3) the terms, of trade finance currently provided by the market compared to what is needed by SME exporters.


This question was answered on 21st October 2020

The availability of trade finance support by UK Export Finance (UKEF) is not dependent on Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations.

UKEF, as the government’s export credit agency, offers a range of trade finance products to help Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) fulfil export contracts, complementing but not competing with the private sector.

UKEF’s trade finance solutions include the provision of export insurance, contract bond insurance, contract bond and export working capital guarantees. Details about these products can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/our-products.

In 2019/20 UKEF provided £4.4 billion in support for UK exports, while 77% of UK companies directly supported by UKEF were SMEs.

Reticulating Splines