4.3.5  ECA

ECAs can be an important source of long term debt finance. ECAs are usually state-owned organisations with the primary objective of promoting the ECA country's exports. Terms offered by ECAs are usually subsidised and can be a lot more general than those offered by the commercial banks. The drawbacks with these types of lending is that they normally require the government guarantee and they may come with certain conditions such as the need to appoint the contractors or purchase equipment from the ECA's country.

A limitation is that ECAs are normally used to finance goods such as equipment rather than to finance civil works. Most ECAs comply with the Consensus Rules. In general, the Consensus Rules seek to establish a "level playing field" by preventing unfair competition generated by an ECA offering excessively general terms to assist the ECA country's exports.

In addition to direct lending, ECAs can offer political risk insurance, commercial risk insurance and interest rate support.

The following are a list of ECAs and their source countries.