■ Korea Trade Insurance Corporation (K-sure, www.ksure.or.kr, Kim Young-hak, president) announced on September 29 (Thur) that it would provide U$6 million of overseas business finance insurance to a Bahrain LNG terminal project in which Samsung C&T Corporation participates as an equity investor, and GS E&C and 38 small Korean component makers also join in.

■ In the bid-winning process, the competition between Korea and Japan was intense, but thanks to the aggressive support from K-sure, which showed its intention of financing the project from the on set, played a significant role in the wining the project. Despite difficult financing structure caused by Bahrain’s sovereign rate drop, K-sure decided to provide U$600 million of guarantee for 20 years, and such a bold decision enabled U$ 750 million of project financing for the project.

○ The foremost condition demanded by the Bahrain government was to provide a competitive financing given the project’s unique financing structure, which channels 75% of total project amount from export financing. Under such a condition, K-sure’s decision of supporting the project made early on at the stage of project bidding significantly helped the Korean consortium win the contract.

■ K-sure estimates that the foreign exchange earning effect of the project would be at least U$400 million with U$100 million of exports by SMEs.

■ Mr. Kim Young-hak, president of K-sure stated that “Due to the prolonged low oil prices and slow down of the emerging economies, the private-public partnership project model is on the rise. In such a trend more Korean companies are joining in overseas projects with a bundled package of investment and exports by forming consortiums with other companies.

○ In such a fast changing market situation, with its proactive financing measures, K-sure will help the exports of small manufacturers while increasing the bid-winning competitiveness of Korean companies.“