KARACHI, March 14: Pakistan Export Finance Guarantee Ltd. (PEFG) will start working as an agent of Islamic Corporation for Insurance of Investment and Export Credit (ICIEC) in Pakistan from April 1 under an agreement reached at with ICIEC.

According to a press release issued on Thursday, ICIEC — an affiliate of Islamic Development Bank has already accorded its approval to PEFG to act as its agent and has also intimated the Government of Pakistan to facilitate the arrangement.

The agreement enables PEFG to offer Pakistani exporters post-shipment insurance risk cover for over 83 countries.

PEFG is also making arrangements to offer factoring/bill discounting facility to Pakistani exporters at competitive pricing through various debt managers abroad.

“The above facilities are other than the current pre-shipment finance guarantee facility being provided to exporters through banks in Pakistan,” says the press release.

Another release issued on Thursday said that PFEG has included Muslim Commercial Bank and Faysal Bank Ltd. in its list of member banks. Previously the list was restricted to founder members only.

The following are the founder member banks of PEFG: (i) Asian Development Bank (ii) PICIC Commercial Bank (iii) Askari Commercial Bank (iv) Metropolitan Bank (v) Bank Alfalah (vi) Platinum Commercial Bank (vii) Bank Al-Habib (viii) Prime Commercial Bank (ix) Habib Bank (x) Soneri Bank (xi) Habib Bank A. G. Zurich (xii) Saudi Pak Commercial Bank (xiii) National Bank and (xiv) Union Bank.

The aim of PEFG is to provide both pre and post-shipment facilities to exporters especially to SMEs.

This was stated by S. M. Zaeem, chief executive of PEFG at a workshop held at MCB staff college on Thursday.