Eximbank holds OECD Environmental and Social Practitioners' Meeting

By Yoon Ja-young

The Export-Import Bank of Korea (Eximbank)?is holding a meeting of environmental and social practitioners, this week, to help address environmental and social issues when providing officially supported export credits.?

According to the Eximbank, it is co-hosting the 46th Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Environmental and Social Practitioners' Meeting in Seoul from Oct. 24 to 25 jointly with the Korea Trade Insurance Corporation.

The meeting comprises experts who establish and revise common approaches applied to export credit agencies of each country in addressing the potential environmental and social impact of projects for which official export credit support is requested. They also aim to share policies and practices related to environmental and social due diligence.

The meetings have been held at the OECD headquarters in Paris in the first half of each year, while the meetings for the second half are held in one of the member countries. A meeting was scheduled in Seoul for 2020, but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is the first time for the meeting to be held in Korea. Around 50 experts from 25 OECD member countries are participating, sharing ideas to evaluate the environmental and social impact of projects for which official export credit support is requested as well as minimizing such impact.

Eximbank has played a leading role in the meeting since Korea joined the OECD in 1996, as seen in the 2018 appointment of an Eximbank employee as chair of the OECD Working Party on Export Credits and Credit Guarantees, an entity established in 1963 under the Trade Committee of the OECD, to discuss views on the export credits and credit guarantees pursued by the governments of member countries in diverse fields including the environment and climate change.

Eximbank plans to apply the latest trends assessed through the meeting in environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) management policies and climate risk assessment. Following the announcement of an ESG management roadmap last year, Eximbank has been working to support local businesses enhance their global ESG competitive edge, establish ESG divisions and committees as well as designate ESG finance programs.

“As a public financial entity, we will make our utmost efforts to create more social value, including helping businesses strengthen their global ESG competitiveness as well as supporting Korea's aim of attaining carbon neutrality,” Eximbank Chairman and President Yoon Hee-sung said at the opening speech of the meeting.