15 May 2002
Source: http://usinfo.state.gov/cgi-bin/washfile/display.pl?p=/products/washfile/latest&f=02051402.clt&t=/products/washfile/newsitem.shtml

US Department of State
International Information Programs

Washington File
_________________________________

14 May 2002

U.S. Exporters Seek More Active Government Support, Evans Says

(Export strategy focuses on tied aid, project development) (480)
By Andrzej Zwaniecki
Washington File Staff Writer 

Washington -- U.S. companies want government to take a more
coordinated and more aggressive approach to helping them compete
internationally, Commerce Secretary Donald Evans says.

Testifying May 14 before the Senate Banking Committee Evans said that
exporters particularly want the U.S. government to discourage foreign
tied and untied aid, advance their interests in major project
development and highlight commercial opportunities in areas affected
by crises.

Tied aid is concessional financing for public projects provided by
some developed nations' governments on condition that the recipient
country uses the money to purchase goods and services from the donor
country.

Countries including Japan have circumvented an international agreement
restricting the use of tied aid by a practice called untied aid --
essentially tied aid with the prohibited elements concealed.

Evans said the Bush administration is proposing to use more
aggressively a special U.S. Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im Bank) fund to
pressure countries participating in international negotiations on
untied aid to reach an agreement on disciplines faster.

Presenting to Congress the administration's annual National Export
Strategy report, Evans said that the Ex-Im Bank would match or counter
tied or untied aid provided by foreign governments for selected
projects that are also of interest to U.S. exporters.

The report said that the U.S. Trade Development Agency would fund on
an experimental basis engineering studies that often set the standards
and specifications for future projects to counter an increasing use of
concessionary financing of these studies by Japan and some other
countries.

Evans said that U.S. competitors often gain an advantage in major
project competitions by building long-term relationships with
officials in target markets and sending early signals that government
financing or technical assistance would likely support a project.

He said that U.S. trade-promotion agencies were going to meet this
challenge by working together to identify priority projects sooner,
thus gaining a chance to indicate likelihood of government financing
at an earlier stage in project development.

The report said that the administration would initiate interagency
cooperation for early project development in a group of pilot
countries that include Brazil, China, South Africa, Mexico, Russia and
Turkey.

In those countries, Evans said, the administration will now have a
coordinated, team approach to bringing buyers and sellers together.

In addition, the administration will develop a coordinated, commercial
approach to the needs of nations that underwent serious crises, the
report said. In the near future, this approach that would entail
providing timely information about assistance needs to U.S. exporters
and identifying business opportunities related to aid projects would
apply to Afghanistan reconstruction, it added.

U.S. exporters indicated that the U.S. government's lack of a
coordinated, commercial strategy led to lost commercial opportunities
for them in post-crisis areas of the world including
Bosnia-Herzegovina, the report said.

(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International
Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site:
http://usinfo.state.gov)