A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THREE NATIONAL EXPORT CREDIT INSURANCE AGENCIES

Abstract

The export credit insurance industry is rather unique in nature. For most countries, there will only be the official export credit insurance institution providing export credit insurance services to their domestic exporters. In some other countries, however, there are also other private insurance companies providing such insurance services. The Export Credit Insurance Corporation of Singapore (ECICS) is the official export credit insurance institution in Singapore and it is the only one that provides the various export credit insurance services to domestic exporters. It also provides export financing schemes similar to commercial banks. Presently, ECICS has been able to secure export credit insurance for less than 1% of Singapore's total exports. In contrast, EDC of Canada covered 4% of the country's total exports and EIBK of Korea covered 6%. The objective of this study is to determine the alternatives that would enable ECICS to insure more of Singapore's total exports. To achieve this, a comparative study of other rational export credit insurance agencies is essential in order to have a better insight on the export credit insurance industry. The study was structured to compare the performance of ECICS against the national export credit insurers from South Korea and Canada through the use of certain performance indicators. From the study, some recommendations were offered to improve the performance of ECICS and fulfill its role of providing competitive credit insurance for more Singaporean exports.