KEIC Broadens Overseas Biz Horizon

Signs reinsurance agreement with Australian firm to cooperate on extending insurance support to their exporters

Korea Export Insurance Corp. signed a reinsurance agreement with Export Finance and Insurance Corp. of Australia at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Bangkok on Aug. 7, the company announced recently.
President Yoo Chang-moo signed the agreement for KEIC, while President Angus Armour signed for the Australian export finance company. EFIC is 100 percent owned by the Australian government and is in charge of export insurance support of Australian exporters since its setup in 1957.
The reinsurance agreement will allow both signatories to provide export insurance support to any overseas export deals involving both Korean and Australian exporters commensurate with the exports made by either country's exporters in the form of reinsurance.
Under the agreement, exporters from Korea and Australia would have many chances to join overseas export deals in the form of a consortium, KEIC officials said. This is due to the world economic slump reducing resources for private reinsurance firms, which made global risk sharing networks among export insurance firms very important.
They said the agreement with EFIC is the second one that KEIC signed with a foreign reinsurance firm after Kuke of Poland, in line with KEIC's strategy to sign similar reinsurance agreements with other international state export insurance firms for more effective risk management and continuous export support.
President Yoo participated in the Berne Union Asia-Pacific group conference in Bangkok held Aug. 5-7, joining 11 heads of export insurance firms in 11 Asia-Pacific countries. They discussed such international issues as trade, expansion of export insurance for investments and the building of an Asian reinsurance network and other cooperative issues. The Berne Union was set up in 1934 with all reinsurance and investment insurance firms around the world as its members, which currently total 51 from 41 countries. They cover 10 percent of the world's trade annually. Its official name is the International Union of Credit and Investment Insurers, or the Berne Union for short, as it is headquartered in Berne, Switzerland. The members meet once every two years.
KEIC, in a ceremony on July 20 at its auditorium at the head office building in downtown Seoul, presented the "CS Declaration" designed to boost the customer satisfaction rate to more than 80 percent by 2012 with the theme of "Smile of Customers, Our Hope."
During the ceremony, the declaration was read aloud along with the presentation of citations to employees with excellent customer service records and a performance of a drama depicting the customer services-upgrading efforts by employees. With the declaration, KEIC plans to strengthen its customer service in the second half. The company will provide training to staff with its Customer Satisfaction Center, opened in June to improve customer consultations and the attitudes of those staff toward customers as well as introduce the CS mileage system to measure its staff's progress in customer service.
President Yoo Chang-moo, at the ceremony, said he will see that proper reimbursement goes to those who upgrade their customer services, calling on all employees to do their best to create a culture that upholds customer satisfaction as the highest value. nw

(right) KEIC President Yoo Chang-moo.KEIC President Yoo shakes hands with President Angus Armour of Export Finance and Insurance Corp. of Australia in Bangkok on Aug. 7.