International cooperation

►EU - Export Credits

Arrangement on Officially Supported Export Credits (OECD Arrangement)

A part of measures for improvement of Company's activities was the introduction of new international rules effective under the Arrangement on Officially Supported Export Credits (so-called OECD Arrangement) in 1999. They covered particularly fixing of minimum insurance premium rates for individual country risk categories and buyers in dependence on credit maturities. This was directly connected with:

• introduction of a uniform system in classification of countries into 7 risk categories in accordance with the rules applied in the OECD,
• introduction of a new methodology of the calculation of the insurance premium from the principal of the credit only,
• offer of a supplementary insurance of credit refinancing costs already for the basic insurance premium,
• possibility of a progressive payment of the insurance premium for large long-term credits, etc.

International Union of Credit and Investment Insurers - Berne Union (BU)

EGAP has been actively involved in activities of the Berne Union and at the beginning EGAP was using know-how of the most important member insurance companies of this organization. In April 1998, after a 2-year observership period, EGAP became the full member of the Union as the first institution of this type from countries of Central and Eastern Europe. In October 2002 the Czech Republic (EGAP) was a host of the Annual Meeting of the Berne Union which is organized twice a year in various member countries of the BU.

Members of the Berne Union keep the guiding principles reflecting their collective view on the international business and the purpose of the BU. These guiding principles have been implemented for individual committees.

Cooperation with foreign export credit insurance companies

EGAP co-operates closely with other credit insurance companies and has concluded with some of them co-operation or reinsurance agreements enabling cover for joint export projects on third markets.