SACE SIMEST: €500 million for Italian exports

SACE SIMEST: €500 million for Italian exports

New partnerships have been established with Nexa Resources mining group and the Indian giant Reliance Industries, with a view to creating business opportunities between Italian enterprises and Latin American and Indian markets. The new deals fall within the scope of the SACE Push Strategy

Rome October 29, 2018

SACE SIMEST, Cassa depositi e Prestiti  Group's Italian hub for exports and internationalisation, has signed two new deals designed to promote the growth of our enterprises abroad. These partnerships fall under the Push Strategy, the proactive approach pursued by SACE as introduced under the new Business Plan, in order to facilitate and strengthen the competitiveness of Italian exports towards selected foreign buyers who are active in key areas of Made-in-Italy.

The first of these deals saw the launch of the partnership between the export hub and Nexa Resources, a Brazilian company which specialises in the extraction and processing of zinc and copper. With a guarantee on a loan of $62.5 million (provided by BBVA), the SACE SIMEST deal in support of Nexa is designed to facilitate the awarding of contracts to Italian exporters whose business is focused on the supply of machinery for extracting and processing raw materials from mining.

The plans presented by the Brazilian company make provisions for the expansion and diversification of its supplier base, with an investment of $280 million  in 2018 to be channelled into growing mining activities and furthering the exploration of new deposits in Latin America. With the second of these deals,SACE has guaranteed a credit line of $500 million  to Reliance Industries Limited, a holding company owned by Reliance – the biggest private group in India, with an annual sales of more than €55 billion, and operations in a wide and varied range of sectors ranging from energy to consumer goods.

The aim of the initiative – which also sees the involvement of a pool of international banks – is to facilitate the awarding of Italian supply contracts, providing a unique means for enterprises (and SMEs in particular) to access the opportunities offered by the Reliance investment plan. The deal will provide business opportunities to companies working in a broad range of sectors, from mechanical goods to retail, as well as opening the door for the leading Made-in-Italy sectors such as fashion, home furnishings, and luxury goods. In addition to this, India also represents a lucrative market for Italian exports. According to  forecasts provided in the most recent SACE Export Report, the India is one of the fifteen nations deemed "essential" for Made-in-Italy businesses, and contributed $95 billion  to the Italian export total in 2017.