Berne Union Holds Annual Meeting

Korea Export Insurance Corp. hosts the convention in Seoul for first time and promotes green growth policies

The Korea Export Insurance Corp. (KEIC) hosted the Berne Union annual general conference from Oct. 11-17 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in downtown Seoul.
At the seven-day meeting of the first global insurance organization in Korea, the KEIC, which is ranked No.4 in terms of insurance writing, was selected as a member of the union’s operation committee, signaling that its role in the global insurance market will expand, the KEIC said recently.
The government-run export insurance company has been the chair of the Berne Union’s Asia-Pacific Cooperative Region Committee in order to solidify its position in the union.
The Berne Union, set up in 1934, is 75 years old this year and has 50 insurance firms from 40 countries as its members, most of them either export insurance or overseas investment insurance firms. It has been the only trade and investment insurance firms’ union, extending coverage to 10 percent of the $13.6 trillion in world trade or $1.3 trillion.
The union has been holding an annual meeting of its members in the second half of every year, this year’s being the 66th to take up such matters as export and investment insurance policies.
Some 200 heads of export insurance firms and executives of the union attended the annual meeting. Speakers at the meeting included Minister Choi Kyung-hwan of the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, Vice Chairman James Adams of the World Bank, Chairman Kim Hyung-kook of the Green Growth Committee and former chairman Jun Kwang-woo of the Financial Services Commission, among others.
The issues taken up at the meeting included trends on government support of each member country to overcome the economic crisis and the future course of the crisis as well as ways to boost international trade and investment around the world.
In the meantime, the KEIC explained the government’s green growth policies so that the international society would have a standard green growth paradigm in a bid to expand export insurance coverage to the green industrial area.
The KEIC made sure that everything used at the meeting had a “neutral carbon participation mark” and bought the CO2 exposure rights for the quantity of CO2 created at the meeting in line with its plan for a “green” meeting.
KEIC President Yoo Chang-moo said the Berne Union has been cooperating with such global trade and financial institutions as the WTO, OECD and the World Bank in creating self-regulatory international regulations and has been a consultative organization in the areas of international trade and investment under a free trade system. He continued that the KEIC should lead the union’s annual meeting successfully to boost Korea’s role in international trade.
The KEIC was established pursuant to the Export Insurance Act in July 1992 as an official export insurance agency under the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy (MOCIE). Its mission is to promote the nation’s exports, overseas investment and other overseas business activities by providing export insurance, overseas investment insurance and credit guarantees.
The National Assembly approves the underwriting limits of the corporation and government contributions to the Export Insurance Fund every year. The corporation underwrites export insurance within the limits approved as such, while taking the responsibility for distributing the funds thus contributed.
Major business operations of the KEIC are deliberated and decided by its Management Committee and the Board of Executive Directors.
The Management Committee establishes basic policies for the corporation’s activities such as the types of export insurance, coverage rates, budgets and the closing of accounts. Led by KEIC Chairman and President Yoo, the committee has 10 members, including high-ranking officials from the Ministry of Finance and Economy (MOFE), Ministry of Planning and Budget (MPB), Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MOFAT), MOCIE, vice presidential-level executives from the nation’s export agencies and experts from the private sector.
Other important decisions are made by the Board of Executive Directors. The KEIC is solely committed to developing export insurance products and high value-added services with a view to promoting the nation’s exports and global trade. To this end, the corporation actively addresses the ever-changing global trade environment. Today, the KEIC provides domestic exporters with 13 types of export insurance and one export credit guarantee. It also offers export credit research and information services on importers and their countries and collects export receivables. nw

Chairman and President Yoo Chang-moo of the Korea Export Insurance Corp.