2. Officially supported export finance in Sweden

Exportkreditnämnden (EKN), the Swedish Export Credits Agency founded in 1933 is the Swedish national ECA and is a self-financed government agency under the supervision of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs (EKN, 2024; IISD, n.d.). Together with the government-owned Swedish Export Credit Corporation (SEK, n.d.a), EKN makes up Sweden’s export credit system (EKN, 2024; IISD, n.d.). Importantly, SEK is a credit institution that receives separate credit ratings by agencies such as Standard & Poor’s or Moody’s (ibid.), whereas EKN as a public authority has the same credit rating as the country of Sweden (AAA as of late 2023) (SEK, 2023b). EKN’s mission is “to promote Swedish exports and the internationalization of Swedish companies, by insuring companies and banks against the risk of not getting paid” (EKN, n.d.), for which it receives instructions from the Swedish government only via its yearly letter.

Clarified in exchanges between EKN, SEK and the authors.

SEK’s mission, in turn, is to “ensure access to financial solutions for the Swedish export industry on commercial and sustainable terms” (Business Sweden, n.d.).

Put differently, while EKN mostly guarantees payment risks for companies and banks,

For a comprehensive overview of all guarantees offered by EKN for banks, exporting companies and subcontractors, see https://www.ekn.se/en/guarantees/our-guarantees/ekns-guarantees/.

SEK provides a variety of loans and official export credits (SEK, n.d.b) and administers the Commercial Interest Reference Rates (CIRR) system which guarantees exporters’ foreign customers financing at a fixed interest rate for the entire credit period (SEK, n.d.b). The overlap of their product portfolios is shown in Figure 1. Together, EKN and SEK are core members of the ‘Team Sweden’ network of public organisations, agencies and companies that promote Swedish exports, among others (SEK, n.d.e.).

Similar to the ‘Team France’ and ‘Team Finland’ networks.

SEK	Other Services, e.g., Factoring	Loan for Swedish Firms	Export Loan	Untied
EKN	Working Capital/CAPEX G'tee	Export Credit Insurance	Green Loan/Incentives

Figure 1: Product portfolios of EKN and SEK

Source: Klasen et al., 2024, p. 6

Table 1 provides an overview of EKN and SEK’s activities. It shows that both ECAs still provide significant support to fossil fuel-dependent sectors such as defence, though military emissions themselves are a (increasing) source of GHG emissions (see for example Michaelowa, 2022).

Table 1: Overview of EKN and SEK

Key facts	EKN	SEK
Type of ECA	Pure cover, State-owned	Multi-instrument, State-owned
Main sectors*	Telecommunications (32%), Defence (32%), Power (13%), Others (8%), Machinery (7%), Transport (7%), Contract Work (1%)	Corporate: IT & Communication Services (30.5%), Industrial (26.5%, incl. aerospace & defence), Consumer Goods (12.4%), Materials (11.7%), Utilities (10.5%), Financials (5.2%), Energy (1.4%), Health Care (1.3%), Other (0.4%) Governments: Industrial (61.4%, incl. aerospace & defence), Infrastructure (28.6%), Power (10%)
Geographic activity concentration*	OECD high-income (52.6%) Balkans (16.7%), Africa (8.1%) Latin America (7.6%) Middle East (5.1%) Sweden domestically (4.9%) Asia (4.5%) Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS; 0.45%)**	Sweden domestically (62%) North America (13%) Western European countries (10%) Latin America (3%) Central and East European Countries (0.8%) Asia (1%), Middle East/Africa (2%)
Commitments outstanding Commitments outstanding is a ‘stock parameter’ of the total amounts under cover or for which liability is assumed at a given cut-off date (compare Berne Union 2021). *	EUR 39.4 billion Using the OECD exchange rate of 1:10 from 2022 throughout the report (Skr 393.8 billion).	EUR 34.8 billion
New commit-ments New commitments is a ‘flow parameter’ which refers to the total volume of new insurances, guarantees, loans or other instruments at a given cut-off date (compare Berne Union, 2021). *	EUR 9.6 billion	EUR 8.0 billion Lending to Swedish exporters (EUR 3.0 billion), lending to exporters’ customers EUR 5.0 billion)
Main instruments of financial support	Export credit insurance, project finance, bonds and guarantees, investment insurance, working capital guarantee and investment credit guarantee for SMEs	Export credits, working capital, factoring services loans in local currencies, project finance, contract guarantees
Category A, B and C projects Category A projects are projects that likely have significant adverse environmental and social effects that are sensitive, diverse, or unprecedented beyond the project sites and may be irreversible, and Category B projects are those with site-specific environmental and social effects (with only few if any irreversible effects) which in most cases can be mitigated. Category C projects are such with minimal or no adverse environmental or social risks and/or impact (IFC, n.d.)	Category A (2019-2023): 19 (~3-4 per year) Category B (2019-2023): 24 (~4-5 per year) Category C (2019-2023): 0	Category A (2019-2023): 16 (~3-4 per year) Category B (2019-2023): 24 (~4-5 per year) Category C (2019-2023): 1 (2022)

Note: (*) = Data from 2023. (**) = Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are included in ‘CIS’ and Türkiye is included in the Balkans (not in Asia).

Sources: authors (TXF, 2023; EKN, 2024b, 2024a; SEK, 2024b, 2024a, n.d.a; Berne Union, n.d.b)