Background and Summary Power of the Secretary of State under section 1 of the Export and Investment Guarantees Act 1991 (EIGA) and Commitment limits
23.In February 2011, the Government published the Trade and Investment for Growth White Paper, noting that ‘trade and investment will be crucial to achieving strong, sustainable and balanced growth’. This White Paper set out the Government’s goal of improving growth and productivity by overcoming the barriers to doing business overseas. A number of commitments were set out in the White Paper with a view to increasing access to trade finance for businesses. The Government has also set targets to improve the UK’s export performance, specifically, to achieve by 2020 £1 trillion of exports per annum, increase by 100,000 the number of companies that export and for UK companies to win a greater number of overseas High Value Opportunity projects.
24.The Government’s policy is to widen the ability of the Export Credits Guarantee Department to support UK exports and exporters, to assist them in contributing towards these goals. This is in the context of the role of the Export Credits Guarantee Department to complement private sector provision of relevant products and services.
25.This Act contains provisions the effect of which is to give the Export Credits Guarantee Department:
26.Other technical changes are also being made through measures contained within the Act, including to: