September 08, 2009
Commerzbank Joins Global Trade Liquidity Program to Support Trade in Emerging Markets
Commerzbank joins the Global Trade Liquidity Program of IFC, a company of the World Bank Group. This unique initiative brings together governments, development finance institutions, and commercial banks to support trade in emerging markets.
Commerzbank will receive $500 million from the program and commit an additional $750 million for its own account to provide $1.25 billion for trade finance activities in developing countries. These funds are expected to support up to $7.5 billion in trade finance in emerging markets over a three-year period. Roughly half of the amount will be used in Sub-Saharan Africa, a region where the impact of the financial crisis has been felt severely and where Commerzbank plans to focus a significant part of its efforts.
“The Global Trade Liquidity Program helps strengthen our clients’ position on global import and export markets, and specifically boost exchange with developing countries,” said Markus Beumer, the Board Member responsible for the Mittelstandsbank segment at Commerzbank. “On account of the short term of trade financing transactions, the funds can even be deployed several times in the course of the program. In other words, the positive effects are actually a multiple of the program volume.”
Lars Thunell, IFC Executive Vice President and CEO, said, “We are delighted that Commerzbank will participate in the Global Trade Liquidity Program. With half the funds disbursed by Commerzbank to be used to provide access to affordable trade finance in Africa, the program can have a significant impact helping businesses there survive the crisis.”
The GTLP was launched in April 2009 to help reverse the decline in trade flows during the global crisis and support up to $50 billion of trade in emerging markets. The program has raised $2.5 billion to date from donor governments and development finance institutions including, IFC – a member of the World Bank Group, Canada, Netherlands, the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, the CDC Group, the African Development Bank, the Saudi Fund for Development, and the OPEC Fund for International Development. A parallel arrangement with the Japan Bank for International Cooperation has raised an additional $1.5 billion.
About Commerzbank
Commerzbank is the leading bank for both private and corporate customers in Germany and one of the leading financial institutions in Europe. The institution serves about 15 million customers worldwide. As a business-partner for the export-oriented SME sector Commerzbank liaises with 6,000 correspondent banks worldwide. As of end of June 2009, there were roughly 67, 000 employees working for Germany's second largest lender, 18,000 of them abroad. More information about the bank can be found at www.commerzbank.com
