New export credit and investment risk business among Berne Union members totalled US$2.74tn in the first half of 2025, boosted by growth in the renewable energy sector.
This marked an uptick of 11.4% compared to the US$2.46tn reported in H1 2024, according to the Berne Union’s data snapshot in the latest edition of its yearbook, published on December 9.
Made up of 90 members, the Berne Union represents the global export credit and investment insurance industry.
Short-term business leapt in nominal value by 12% to US$2.6tn, but this was down to the depreciation of the US dollar compared to other hard currencies, it said.
Accounting for this, growth in short-term cover was largely flat, with much the same volume of business predicted for the second half of the year.
Medium-and long-term (MLT) business, however, saw “record-breaking new support” during the period, reaching US$77.5bn.
This was underpinned by activity in the transport sector, including transactions for large ocean-going vessels and related infrastructure deals, such as the expansion of Tanzania’s national railway.
Renewable energy became the second-biggest sector for new MLT business in the first half of 2025, overtaking manufacturing and totalling more than US$10bn.
This was driven by support for major offshore wind farms, the Berne Union said, while the sector also became the third largest by exposure.
“MLT exposure to the renewable energy sector is now double the level seen in 2020 – while other sectors have held broadly stable, this suggests a structural change,” it said.
By contrast, longer-term political risk insurance is “subdued”, the organisation said, particularly among Western export credit agencies (ECAs). East Asian ECAs and private insurers appeared to buck the trend with “more stable” volumes.
Untied credit products continued to grow in popularity, the Berne Union reported, with new commitments under its ‘other cross-border’ (OCB) category reaching US$18.6bn for H1 2025.
Untied financing is not linked – or tied – to national exports but instead offers working capital support or other forms of financing to companies or projects, and has been a burgeoning form of support for several years due to its use in securing critical minerals or energy.
OCB business exposure, which includes untied support, is now at US$139bn – a figure that has doubled since 2019.
Berne Union members also increased their provision of domestic credit, reporting a 24% rise to US$36.6bn in working capital and internationalisation products.
“The industry is now deploying more capacity in untied and domestic credit products than ever before,” it added.
This trend was seen in the Berne Union’s State of the Industry report for 2024, published in May, which found that there had been U$99bn in new commitments for these products throughout 2024.
The organisation’s H1 2025 data also showed that claims from Ghana, Zambia, Ethiopia and Sri Lanka have dwindled as their sovereign debt distress eased, while sanctions-related claims involving Russian entities rose.
Aggregate claims paid fell by 31% in H1 2025 to US$3.7bn, compared to H2 2024.
The report also flagged ECA support in least developed countries, noting that it had “remained steadfast” despite competing demands coming from the defence and energy sectors of developed nations.
Yet among the poorest countries, the post-2020 half-year average for export credit and untied financing has fallen by 39% compared to the five years before 2020, largely due to sovereign debt crises.
Elsewhere in the Berne Union’s report, senior sector figures drew attention to the need for ECAs and export-import banks to adapt their roles to work with geopolitical alliances.
Andreas Klasen and Henning Meyer, directors at the Lill Institute for Public Value, said there must be a “fundamental reconceptualisation” of agencies’ roles to “become active instruments of economic statecraft embedded within ‘whole-of-government’ strategies”.
In August, Berne Union president Yuichiro Akita spoke to GTR about the “new mandates” for ECAs and the growth of defence sector business, which he said was “eating a lot of ECA capacity”.
