New Guarantee Facility to Support Central & Eastern Europe Trade

The agreement will provide unfunded guarantees to global and regional banks that finance trade in emerging markets in Central and Eastern Europe. The unfunded guarantees will encourage banks to finance trade by helping mitigate the credit risk of re-entering or expanding into emerging markets. IFC plans to match Sida's contribution and manage the facility.
The facility is part of the IFC-led Global Trade Liquidity Program, a coordinated effort among government, international financial institutions, and development agencies to support trade finance in the wake of the drop in liquidity due to the global financial crisis. Over the last six months, the program has disbursed more than 900 million USD to support 2.2 billion USD in trade transactions in emerging markets.