Ex-Im Bank Adds to Record-Level Support for American Satellite Industry, Authorizes $343.3 Million Loan Financing AsiaSat's Purchase of Communications Satellites and Launch Services
Washington, D.C. - The Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) has authorized a $343.3 million direct loan to Asia Satellite Telecommunications Co. Ltd. (AsiaSat) to finance the purchase of two communications satellites designed and built by Space Systems/Loral LLC (SSL) in Palo Alto, Calif.
AsiaSat 6, a C-band satellite, and AsiaSat 8, a mixed Ku/Ka-band satellite, are being manufactured by SSL under a contract that was announced in November 2011. The launches are planned for the first half of 2014.
Ex-Im Bank's financing also will support launch services supplied by Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) in Hawthorne, Calif., and launch insurance from Marsh USA Inc. in New York, N.Y.
Ex-Im's satellite financing is its fastest-growing portfolio. In Fiscal Year 2013 to date, the Bank has authorized $891 million in support of U.S. satellites and related services. Ex-Im Bank has financed approximately 60 percent of U.S. commercial satellite sales in the last three years.
The satellite industry is the quintessential 21st-century business. Worldwide demand for satellite-based telecommunications is expanding, and with Ex-Im's support, more and more of these satellites are made in America. Ex-Im Bank's financing of these SSL communications satellites and SpaceX launch services is further expanding the global reach of U.S. satellite companies and helping to sustain thousands of jobs in California and New York, said Ex-Im Bank Chairman and President Fred P. Hochberg.
manufacturing facility in Palo Alto, Calif. Ex-Im Bank's
loan to AsiaSat is supporting high-tech jobs at SSL, SpaceX
and other U.S. companies serving as subcontractors.
(Photo courtesy of SSL)
ABOUT EX-IM BANK:
Ex-Im Bank is an independent federal agency that creates and maintains U.S. jobs by filling gaps in private export financing at no cost to American taxpayers. In the past five years (from FY 2008), Ex-Im Bank has earned for U.S. taxpayers nearly $1.6 billion above the cost of operations. The Bank provides a variety of financing mechanisms, including working capital guarantees, export-credit insurance and financing to help foreign buyers purchase U.S. goods and services.
In FY 2012, Ex-Im Bank authorized a record-breaking $1.4 billion to finance exports of U.S.-manufactured communications satellites, an increase of nearly 8 percent over the previous record of $1.3 billion authorized for these types of exports in FY 2011.
Ex-Im Bank approved $35.8 billion in total authorizations in FY 2012 - an all-time Ex-Im record. This total includes more than $6.1 billion directly supporting small-business export sales - also an Ex-Im record. Ex-Im Bank's total authorizations are supporting an estimated $50 billion in U.S. export sales and approximately 255,000 American jobs in communities across the country. For more information, visit www.exim.gov.
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