OREANDA-NEWS. November 08, 2012. In the course of the International Economic Forum in Seoul (South Korea) on November 6, State Corporation ‘Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs (Vnesheconombank)’ and the Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK, the bank focuses on supporting small and medium-sized enterprises) entered into a Memorandum of Understanding.

On behalf of Vnesheconombank the Memorandum was signed by Member of the Board, Deputy Chairman Mikhail Kopeikin and on behalf of IBK – by Senior Executive Vice President, Head of Global Markets and Treasury Division Seog-Ha Yoo.

The parties agreed to expand cooperation in order to help enhance small and medium-sized enterprises in Korea and the Russian Federation. Under the Memorandum representatives of Korean and Russian banks are ready to provide information and consulting support for small and medium-sized enterprises of Korea and Russia as well as assist SMEs of both countries in export-import cooperation.

M. Kopeikin acted as a moderator of the International Economic Forum’s plenary session “Global Economic Challenges. Eurozone Crisis Projected on Eurasian Economy”. In his address devoted to Vnesheconombank’s financial instruments for small and medium-sized enterprises he stressed that cooperation between Vnesheconombank and the Industrial Bank of Korea would open up new opportunities for Russian and Korean small and medium-sized enterprises in promoting their products to the world market and expand access to financing.

On the second day of the Forum Vnesheconombank is to conduct a thematic sitting “Instruments for Financial Support for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises”. Representatives of leading Korean financial institutions are planning to discuss issues of funding pools of SME projects, capabilities of developing and implementing programs of funding on competitive price terms, activities of Korean investment SME funds, instruments for funding SME projects in Russia and South Korea including for innovation companies.

The Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK) was established in 1961. It is a main bank responsible for providing support for SMEs in South Korea. The Government of the Korean Republic owns a 76.3% stake in the bank. The amount of credits to Korean SMEs is about 130 billion US dollars or a fifth of the Korean market for funding SMEs. The bank is represented abroad by 1 subsidiary bank and 13 branches. The bank has high ratings of reliability - Fitch “A+” “A1”, S&P “A”.