02/12/2008
On November 26, 2008, Eksportfinans and the Ministry of Trade and Industry entered into an agreement ('Agreement') securing future financing of Norwegian exports. The Agreement entails that Eksportfinans can borrow directly from the Norwegian Government to finance contracts which qualify for the use of officially supported export credits (so called CIRR-loans). As an alternative we may also offer floating rate loans for financing these contracts. The Agreement is subject to the approvals from the Norwegian Parliament, Eksportfinans' General Assembly and the EFTA Surveillance Authority.
The background necessitating the Agreement is that the market for raising debt currently is limited to borrowers with the support of a government guarantee. Eksportfinans does not have such guarantee and was forced to introducing a clause covering a situation where sufficient funds were unavailable in the fall of 2008. With the Agreement in place, we are happy to announce that we now are in the position to process new loan applications for financing of export contracts. Until the Agreement has been formally approved as mentioned above, we will however have to maintain the'sufficient availability of funds' clause. This clause will be included in Loan Agreements, term sheets and proposals for possible financing of export contracts; after formal approval of the Agreement we will still have to make financing subject to sufficient allocation of funds from the Norwegian Parliament for the relevant fiscal year. We have reason to believe that the formal approval of the Agreement will be at hand by January 31, 2009.Please do not hesitate to address any questions on the above subject.