The heads of US Exim Bank and South Korea’s Kexim have signed a memorandum of understanding that pledges cooperation in a number of areas and proposes joint efforts ranging from combined training to potential reciprocal or co-financing.

Philip Merrill, chairman and president of US Exim, and Kexim’s chairman and president Dong-Kyu Shin, signed the document during a recent visit to Seoul by Merrill.

“This agreement will strengthen both of our institutions and benefit the workers of both of our countries,” Merrill told Kexim’s Dong-Kyu Shin and others present at the signing. “Korea is a vital US ally and a bastion of democracy and prosperity in east Asia. It is also America’s seventh largest trading partner,” Merrill noted.

The memorandum of agreement proposes establishing a framework for enhanced cooperation in a number of areas, including the strengthening of institutional ties, such as joint attendance at workshops and seminars; general information exchange, through regular meetings and ad hoc working groups, and training courses and seminars in the banking sector; cooperation and promotion, through sharing of resources, experience and expertise; reciprocal or co-financing, where companies located in Korea and the US contemplate entering into export contracts for the supply of goods and/or services to a buyer established in a country other than Korea and the US in relation to the same export transaction.

In the agreement, Kexim and US Exim agree to discuss the establishment of a formal arrangement whereby one party would provide a financing facility for suppliers, borrowers or banks on the condition that the other party guarantees a portion of such a facility.