Govt to infuse Rs 1,300 crore in EXIM Bank

Loan book to increase by Rs 13,000 cr; total portfolio of projects supported by Bank is currently Rs 1,80,000 cr

State-owned trade financier Export-Import (Exim) Bank of India said the Centre would infuse Rs 1,300 crore capital into the Bank, helping it extend new finance worth Rs 13,000 crore.  

Speaking to reporters in Chennai, David Rasquinha, deputy managing director of Exim Bank, said the Centre, which is the sole owner of the Bank, had decided to infuse Rs 1,300 crore as capital. He said the existing regulations allow the bank to extend Rs 13,000 crore worth new loans for a fresh capital of Rs 1,300 crore.   

Rasquinha said last year the Bank's loan book grew by Rs 9,000 crore and this year it was hopeful of reaching around Rs 12,000 crore. “We want to grow our loan book by over $2 billion in the fiscal 2015-16,” he said.

The Bank is reaching out to new opportunities in power generation and distribution, water, sanitation, and civil construction. The total portfolio of projects supported by the Bank is currently worth around Rs 180,000 crore ($31 billion).

As on September 30, 2014, 374 export contracts valued at $26.85 billion (around Rs 161,083 crore), which are under execution across 78 countries in Asia, Africa, CIS were being supported by the Bank. These projects are being executed by 112 India-based companies.

Of its total loan exposure, around 40 per cent is for Africa, 25-30 per cent to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) countries.

Rasquinha added the scope for lending to Saarc was huge.

Speaking about the non-performing assets (NPAs) he said the Bank’s NPAs were decent at 2.8-3 per cent.

“I am not alarmed, you can’t do banking without having NPA's, and they are correlated to the GDP. This level of NPA is not different of what is happening in other parts of the world,” said Rasquinha. Half of the Bank’s portfolio is export credit, while the rest includes overseas investment, he added.

He said the Europe had almost collapsed and most of the companies there were in trouble, and the acquired company, which was supposed to do well had gone into trouble. Auto components, textile, chemicals and pharmaceutical, civil construction are the ones that were feeling the heat, he added.