British Chamber of Commerce: Accessing Finance to Trade with the World

Description

Louis Taylor, CEO of UK Export Finance, in conversation with Anne-Marie Martin, Director of Global Networks at the BCC

The impact of the global pandemic on all economies across the world means that trading goods and services internationally has never been more important.

One of the most regularly mentioned barriers to international trade has been limited access to adequate and secure financing arrangements, to enable businesses to grow international trade activity or expand their global footprint through major global projects.

UK Export Finance (UKEF), the UK government’s export credit agency, provides both finance and insurance solutions - in partnership with the private sector -for companies that want to export globally.

Their latest report shows that they have provided £4.4 billion support for UK exports to 69 countries. 77% of the companies UKEF have directly supported were SMEs and 88% of these were based outside of London.

Join Louis Taylor, CEO of UK Export Finance, and Anne-Marie Martin, Director of Global Networks at the BCC, for a fascinating and topical discussion on the future of global trade. They will be examining how companies in the UK can access finance and insurance to help them deliver projects, in particular large investment projects in emerging economies across the world.

The wide-ranging conversation will cover why exporting is so important to the economic recovery for every nation, however large or small. They will also explore how UKEF’s 2020-2024 business plan aims to help companies, particularly SMEs, as they recover from the aftermath of the pandemic, as the economy moves into recovery and renewed growth.

Please register here

Speaker Bio:
Louis Taylor is Chief Executive of UK Export Finance (UKEF), the UK’s export credit agency. He is also a Director General in the Department for International Trade, and a member of its Executive Committee and Management Board.

Before joining UKEF, Louis held a range of senior roles at Standard Chartered Bank, including from 2013 to 2015 as Chief Operating Officer of Group Treasury, based in London. Before that, he spent three years as the bank’s CEO for Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, based in Ho Chi Minh City. During this time he was also Vice Chairman of the European Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam (Eurocham). He joined Standard Chartered in London in 2004, working in Group Corporate Development, which undertakes the bank’s acquisitions, divestments and other inorganic growth initiatives.

His earlier career included eight years working for JP Morgan in debt capital markets and mergers and acquisitions, and five years in corporate development and strategy with two industrial companies, Cookson Group plc and BTR plc.

Louis is a trustee of the charity Sightsavers, which prevents sight loss and promotes equal rights for people with disabilities. He is also a former chair of trustees of the charity Music in Prisons, which runs music education projects to help rehabilitate offenders, and a former chair of governors of the Royal Grammar School in Newcastle upon Tyne. He has an MA in Law from Cambridge University.