The US Export-Import Bank Board of Directors has approved the first-ever direct loan to support domestic manufacturing.
The $4.7 million to Aquatech, a small, minority-owned business based in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, is the first transaction authorized under ExIm’s Make More in America Initiative.
It will support the purchase of services and laboratory equipment to modernize and expand the Aquatech’s existing applied testing and development laboratories at two locations in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The transaction will also support 10 construction jobs and 8 new jobs at Aquatech and allow the company to compete to win significant contracts supplying foreign and domestic lithium extraction projects.
“We are thrilled that Aquatech, a small business with more than 25-years of history with ExIm, is the first company we are able to support under the Make More in America Initiative,” said Bank President and Chair Reta Jo Lewis. “Supporting companies looking to expand their domestic manufacturing capabilities is not only a critical step to ensure they can grow through exporting, but also strengthens our supply chains and brings good paying jobs back home.”
The Make More in American initiative is a tool designed to unlock financing for American manufacturing, strengthen America’s global competitiveness, close critical supply chain gaps and support American jobs. The initiative makes ExIm’s existing medium- and long-term loans and loan guarantees available for export-oriented domestic manufacturing projects as part of the Administration’s whole-of-government efforts to strengthen the resiliency and security of America’s supply chains.
The transaction also qualifies for ExIm’s China and Transformational Exports Program, which provides financing flexibilities for certain transformational exports, including critical minerals used in the energy storage supply chain. The Bank also is a participant in the State Department’s Minerals Security Partnership, which seeks to bolster the security, diversity and resiliency for supply chains of critical minerals, which are essential in driving the clean energy transition.
The Board of Directors also approved a more than $46 million loan guarantee to support the export sale of a business jet produced by Gulfstream, a company based in Savannah, Georgia, to a company in Turkey. The transaction is estimated to support around 300 jobs.
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