Thai exporters are increasingly signing up for export insurance provided by the Export-Import Bank of Thailand (EIBT), the country's official export credit agency.

Export turnover covered by EIBT's credit insurance programme in the first 10 months of 2000 reached 15.57 billion baht (US$36.3 million), an increase of 45.6 per cent over the total for the whole year in 1999.

According to EIBT, exporters of seafood, textiles and jewellery are the heaviest users of three credit insurance schemes to help Thai companies break into new and wider markets by enabling them to offer customers more favourable payment terms.

L/C insurance

In one of the schemes, EIBT insures exporters against the risk of non-payment in transactions where letters of credit are issued to exporters by small banks or banks in high-risk categories.

EIBT's senior executive vice president, Thira Wipuchanin, foresees even stronger demand for export credit insurance from Thai exporters. He also said that since the government agency's collaboration with Krung Thai Bank in July to provide the commercial bank's customers with insurance coverage against non-payment risks, other commercial banks have shown interest in offering similar services to customers. This service will help exporters to expand their existing market share as well as to penetrate into new markets.

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