Corporate report

UK Export Finance Performance Highlights 2021 to 2022

Published 30 June 2022

1. Chief Executive’s foreword

UKEF has once again demonstrated its worth in a year of economic uncertainty – adeptly deploying our expertise to support exporters and promote British businesses while protecting the interests of the taxpayer

Louis Taylor, Chief Executive Officer

2. Performance highlights

Our impact this financial year:

• Best Export Credit Agency of the Year awarded by Trade Finance Global
• £7.4bn provided in support of UK exports
• 72,000 UK jobs supported
• 18 International Export Finance Executives providing support in international markets
• 74% staff engagement, our highest ever score in the Civil Service People Survey and in the top 10 departments across government
• £4.3bn gross value added to the UK economy
• £1.4bn COVID-19 support (through our Temporary COVID-19 Risk Framework)
• 26 Export Finance Managers supporting UK SMEs

3. Climate leadership

In our new Climate Change Strategy, we committed to reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050, making us one of the first export credit agencies (ECAs) to launch a net zero strategy.

• £3.6 billion for sustainable projects overseas in 2021, without any support for fossil fuels.
• £38 million for the construction of the Sharjah Environment Company LLC green headquarters powered by solar energy in the UAE
• £260 million for the largest solar facility in Türkiye, capable of providing up to 20% of the country’s energy production and enough power for 2 million homes
• £130 million for 6 new hospitals in Côte d’Ivoire, reaching a combined catchment of more than 1 million people
• £42 million to export of 87 emergency bridges for use in flood-hit areas across Ghana
• £210 million for the construction of a major offshore wind facility in Taiwan, helping to power over 650,000 homes
• £1.1 billion for our biggest ever civil infrastructure deal to build a high-speed electric railway in Türkiye
• COP26,Glasgow - 39 Export Credit Agencies joined us in pledging to end support for fossil fuel projects from the end of 2022

4. Export Strategy: made in the UK, sold to the world

The government’s new Export Strategy fired the starting gun on the race to reach a trillion pounds of UK exports by the end of the decade. With our support, UK businesses can capitalise on a network of modern Free Trade Agreements, which together accounted for nearly £800 billion of UK bilateral trade in 2020.

• 81% of companies directly supported by UKEF were SMEs
• £250 million of support for SMEs through our General Export Facility
• £2 billion returned to the Treasury since 1991 as UKEF continues to benefit the UK taxpayer
• 115 aircraft, all in insolvency protection at the start of the year, successfully restructured, secured, repossessed or sold

5. Our mission statement

We advance prosperity by ensuring no viable UK export fails for lack of finance or insurance, doing that sustainably and at no net cost to the taxpayer.

6. A sustainable future for business

UKEF’s mandate is to support viable UK exports. As sustainability becomes a higher and higher priority for the UK and the world, it has become increasingly integral to our assessment of what makes an export viable.

This year we revised our mission statement to make explicit the increasing centrality of sustainability to our business.

For UKEF, undertaking our business sustainably means taking account of factors beyond the purely financial. This includes relevant laws and regulations, industry best practice and standards relating to – for example – environmental, social and human rights impacts, climate change, debt sustainability, and financial crime.

We recognise that the support we provide to UK exporters can contribute to financial and non-financial sustainability impacts. UKEF is committed to reducing the negative sustainability impacts associated with our financing activities, promoting high standards of environmental and social performance, and maximising opportunities for positive impacts.