The UK space industry received a boost in the UK Government's Autumn statement which proposed to strengthen the role of UK Export Finance (UKEF) in a move to encourage UK exports as the UK leaves the EU.
The UKEF has faced requests by the space industry to step up to compete with the support provided by the other major export credit agencies: COFACE in France; EXIM in the US; Export Development Canada; and the Chinese export credit agencies (ECAs). Of the emerging market ECAs outside the OECD, the Chinese ECAs have shown the most dramatic increase in activity levels.
For several years, UKEF has stated that it has the capacity to support satellite transactions, equivalent to their other ECA counterparts. UKEF has actively being raising its profile in the space industry, and we are aware of several projects that it is currently working on - but there is some way to go before it has the same profile as ECAs such as COFACE.
August Statement Proposals
In the Government's Autumn statement on 23 November, the Chancellor announced doubling UKEF's risk appetite to £5 billion, and increasing capacity for support in individual markets by up to 100%. This will result in as much as £2.5 billion of additional capacity to support exports to certain destinations.
Key UKEF and trade measures include:
In order to support UK trade policy more generally and the UK's exit from the EU, additional resource is planned to be provided to strengthen trade policy capability in DIT and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, totalling £26 million annually by 2019-20.
It will be interesting to watch what this additional support will look like in practice particularly over the next few years.
If you have any queries or would like to receive more information please contact:
Joanne Wheeler | Brett Hailey | Zoe Feller |
Partner, UK | Partner,UK | Legal Director, UK |
Tel: +44 20 7415 6000 | Tel: +44 20 7905 6394 | Tel: +44 20 3017 6950 |
joanne.wheeler@twobirds.com | brett.hailey@twobirds.com | zoe.feller@twobirds.com |