News

New York, N.Y. - Today, Export-Import Bank Chairman and President Fred P. Hochberg rang the Closing Bell at NASDAQ MarketSite in Times Square. He was joined by a group of small business exporters.

Chairman Hochberg's remarks, as prepared for delivery, are below.

This is exciting for me. I love markets, and NASDAQ is a great one.

Even better, I've never seen the inside of this place - only the outside. It looks great!

Capital is the lifeblood of the American economy, and allocating capital is what you do really well. It can ensure a sustainable, efficient, competitive expansion.

With our economy recovering steadily, your role in capital markets has never been more important. The Fed forecasts that our GDP will grow by three percent in 2013 - even higher growth next year.

We see that clearly in our nation's export economy - and not just in big-picture data. I talk with exporters a lot, they see it up close, and they're very bullish on our future.

They see tremendous opportunities for American industry and workers to provide everything from construction equipment and aircraft to farm commodities and consumer goods. “Made in America” is a tremendous brand.

That's why President Obama launched the National Export Initiative - to double U.S. exports by the end of 2014.

The Export-Import Bank has an important role in this initiative - and we are ready to work with NASDAQ and your listed companies.

We already do business with dozens of NASDAQ-listed companies every year - First Solar and Zions Bancorp come to mind - and want to do more.

We provide loans, guarantees, working capital, and guaranteed bonds. We're expanding export financing that helps level the playing field in overseas markets - really promising markets like sub-Saharan Africa, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates.

In the last four years, we've gone from $14 billion in authorization to $35.8 billion. These supported 255,000 export-related jobs last year - for a total of 950,000 jobs supported in the past four years.

All at no cost to the American taxpayer.

U.S. companies from around the country come to us with their export plans. But we also take the initiative to focus on the most promising key countries and industries.

We make a special effort to expand our financing for small businesses.

And we're modernizing Bank infrastructure and IT systems to improve efficiency and reduce the time it takes to approve and disburse financing.

We at Ex-Im Bank are proud to be part of President Obama's National Export Initiative to grow exports and create good jobs at home - and put more American workers back to work.

With your help, we will do just that. And now, the bell. This trading day is over!

About Ex-Im Bank

Ex-Im Bank is an independent federal agency that creates and maintains U.S. jobs by filling gaps in private export financing at no cost to American taxpayers. In the past five years (from Fiscal Year 2008), Ex-Im Bank has earned for U.S. taxpayers nearly $1.6 billion above the cost of operations. The Bank provides a variety of financing mechanisms, including working capital guarantees, export-credit insurance and financing to help foreign buyers purchase U.S. goods and services.

Ex-Im Bank approved almost $35.8 billion in total authorizations in FY 2012 - an all-time Ex-Im record. This total includes more than $6.1 billion directly supporting small-business export sales - also an Ex-Im record. Ex-Im Bank's total authorizations are supporting an estimated $50 billion in U.S. export sales and approximately 255,000 American jobs in communities across the country. For more information, visit www.exim.gov.

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