News | News Releases | 2001

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Local North Dakota and Minnesota companies, manufacturers and financial institutions who export or are looking to export will learn how the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) can help expand their export sales at a luncheon seminar sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce of Fargo-Moorhead on Monday, August 13, 2001. Ex-Im Bank Director Dan Renberg will discuss the Bank’s role in the global economy, and give an overview of Ex-Im Bank’s financing programs and discuss ways local North Dakota and Minnesota businesses, both large and small, can use these programs to compete in emerging foreign markets.

Monday, August 13, 2001
Noon - 1:30 p.m.
Radisson Hotel Fargo
201-5th North, Fargo, ND

(Event is open to press)"Ex-Im Bank wants to do more to help North Dakota and Minnesota companies export," said Renberg. "North Dakota and Minnesota already are strong exporters of agricultural products and equipment, software and related services, machinery, and environmental consulting services. But there is even greater potential for these and other industries to export to many emerging markets around the world. Ex-Im Bank can provide the financing products to make this happen."

While in Fargo, Renberg will visit Weather Modifications, Inc., a small Fargo company that has tapped into the global market through exports, using Ex-Im Bank assistance. Weather Modifications received a $1.5 million working capital loan that was used to cover the sale of $9 million in weather monitors and cloud seeding systems to companies in Argentina, the United Arab Emirates and Canada. The company has used Ex-Im Bank working capital financing since 1997.

In North Dakota over the last five years, Ex-Im Bank supported more than $16.1 million of exports from six North Dakota communities. Fifty percent of these transactions were done with small businesses. In Minnesota, Ex-Im Bank supported 30 communities, 83 companies and financed a total of $371.3 million in exports during the last five years.

Ex-Im Bank is an independent U.S. government agency that assists in financing the export of U.S. goods and services to markets around the world, through export credit insurance, loan guarantees, and direct loans. In fiscal year 2000, Ex-Im Bank helped to finance nearly $15.5 billion of U.S. exports worldwide.