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| Fred Hochberg. Chairman Of Export-Import Bank. |
Message from the Chairman
Friends,
Recently the Export-Import Bank of the United States announced a fourth straight record-breaking year for export financing – over $35.7 billion in Exim authorizations for FY 2012. That is up by nearly 10 percent from last fiscal year and up 150 percent over the past four years. We not only did this at no cost to taxpayers, we delivered $1.1 billion in excess revenues to the Treasury.
But these numbers mean little without understanding the impact we've had on America's economic recovery. Our financing supported 255,000 export-related jobs last year – good jobs with high wages and a promising future for working families—and nearly 1 million jobs over the past 4 years. These quality jobs were in communities across the country in industries ranging from nuclear power plant machinery and services to solar panels.
Our financing for small businesses also reached a new record of $6.1 billion – supporting innovative entrepreneurs as they expand into overseas markets. By the end of FY 2012, 650 small businesses have used Exim financing this year for the first time; additionally, more than 1,730 small-business transactions were for loans under $500,000. And we've only just begun. Our support for women- and minority-owned small-business exporters, for instance, increased nearly 17 percent, setting a new record. Here at Ex-Im, we are always looking to partner with new exporters.
Export growth is contributing more and more to the nation's economy. Overall in 2011, U.S. exports accounted for $2.17 trillion of U.S. gross domestic product of $15.6 trillion – an all-time high. This underscores the success so far of President Obama's National Export Initiative – a coordinated effort to double U.S. exports by the end of 2014 – as we continue to make steady progress towards that goal.
Business people around the country are impressed when I tell them that we produced these results with a staff of only about 400. Not only that, we cut our approval times in half, simplified application forms, and launched a Total Enterprise Modernization program to streamline our systems. In FY 2012, 90% of all transactions were processed within 30 days and 98% were processed within 100 days. We are doing "Government at the Speed of Business" and expect even more productivity improvements in the year ahead. I invite you to read on for details about our successful fourth quarter and fiscal year.
