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Dept of Trade and Industry

Answer

Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will list the objections made by the Export Credits Guarantee Department to US proposals on greater transparency at the recently concluded OECD negotiations on common approaches to officially supported export credits and the environment. [29408] Nigel Griffiths: [holding answer 22 January 2002]: At the June 2001 meeting of the OECD Export Credit Group the USA rejected latest proposals of the common approaches recommendation as they did not "require" Export Credit Agencies (ECAs) to make public environmental impact information relating to projects being reviewed by ECAs before the ECA reaches its decision on supporting a project. ECGD would have been content to discuss this issue further and was successful with its proposal that the following wording should be included: "Members are expected to encourage project sponsors to make environmental impact information publicly available". Several of the country representatives stated that their domestic legislation prevented their ECA from making publicly available any information concerning applications for support. Several more made it clear that, at this stage, they could not consider publishing any information "prior" to making their decision on support. It was therefore apparent that a consensus could not have been achieved. Given the significance of the issues that could be agreed and the commitment to review the agreement by the end of 2003 "to enhance it in the light of experience", ECGD concluded that this agreement was a good first step in order to cement the progress made. ECGD will be consulting about the timing of the publication of EIAs in early 2002 as part of its review of its "Impact Questionnaire" and associated case impact analysis process.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

29408; 378 c1067-8W

Session

2001-02

Subjects

Disclosure of information Environment protection Export credit guarantees UK Export Finance OECD countries Negotiations USA

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk