UK Export Finance provided £7.4 billion in support for UK exports last year

.The report concluded that finance provided by UKEF in 2021-22 supported 72,000 UK jobs and added a gross value of £4.3bn to the economy.

Of those supported by UKEF, 83 per cent were located outside of London and a record 81 per cent were small and medium-sized enterprises, according to the organisation’s annual results.

A spokesman said: “The £7.4bn – the highest level for 14 years – brings the total support over the last five years to £33.4bn.

“It helped businesses to recover following the pandemic and is now supporting exporters facing challenges with global supply chains worsened by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“And in its first year without providing any support for overseas fossil fuel projects, UKEF has launched a new mission statement and made ambitious carbon reduction targets to address climate change.”

Anne-Marie Trevelyan, Secretary of State for International Trade, commented: “The UK is awash with untapped export potential. We have opened the door to the world with historic trade deals and now we are helping businesses walk through it.

“That’s why our national export credit agency, UK Export Finance, is boosting firms’ ability to export to the world with record-breaking support year after year.”

The number of SMEs that benefited from a UKEF support scheme increased by 25% compared with the previous year, with more than 560 insurance and guarantee schemes issued.

The spokesman added: “In a new annual record, 81% of the companies UKEF supported directly with a scheme were SMEs. These milestones were underpinned by the ‘game-changing’ General Export Facility – a product designed specifically to give SME exporters more flexibility in accessing trade finance, unlocking almost £250m of working capital loans.”

A further £300m was also awarded to 263 UK companies supplying to infrastructure projects UKEF has financed across the globe, supporting UK exports. These include doors made in Birmingham sold to an airport in Ghana, fridges made in Norfolk sold to a hotel in Dubai and critical medical supplies shipped from South Wales to hospitals in Zambia.

Businesses to benefit included a Teesside-based business, Paralloy, which secured a £15m funding package to enable it to fulfil the highest number of exports in its 90-year history, with shipments to North America, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific.

Robert McGowan, CEO of Paralloy, commented: “This UKEF-backed funding package from Santander UK has enabled us to future-proof the business, and provided the working capital to fulfil bigger export contracts.

“It’s truly been a game-changer, and we can now focus on building our order book even more and hiring the right team to support that.”

UKEF said it maintained sizeable levels of financial support in its first year without backing overseas fossil fuel projects. It provided £3.6bn of support to the clean energy, healthcare and critical infrastructure sectors.