EKN upgrades Iran
As a result of lower credit risk, EKN, in line with the OECD, is now upgrading Iran to a better country risk category – from 7 to 6, where 7 represents the highest risk.
EKN resumed issuing guarantees for exports to the country in connection with the easing of the sanctions against Iran in January 2016. Iran repaid the majority of EKN's outstanding claim of SEK 597 million in the spring.
"The repayments show that Iran has activated its payment flows, which strengthens our payment experience of the country. Therefore, we can now upgrade Iran,” says Victor Carstenius, country analyst at EKN.
Since the issuing of guarantees was resumed, EKN has issued offers for SEK 4.8 billion and issued new guarantees for export transactions with Iran for SEK 147 million.
"We are seeing high demand from exporters, but so far the banks have limited capacity and are proceeding with caution in consideration of the remaining US sanctions, and EKN has thus far only issued guarantees for transactions with short credit terms," says Victor Carstenius.
From 2008 to the start of 2012, EKN issued guarantees for 232 export transactions to Iran, at a value of SEK 12.1 billion. Swedish exports to Iran amounted to about SEK 16.7 billion during this period. The exports guaranteed by EKN went to sectors such as telecom, power and transport.