ECGC nudges export­ers towards safer mar­kets

NEW DELHI : State-run export credit agency ECGC Ltd has upgraded risk rank­ings of two dozen coun­tries, thereby sub­stan­tially redu­cing insur­ance costs for Indian export­ers in these geo­graph­ies, to pro­tect export­ers from the adverse impact of US tar­iffs and encour­age them to diver­sify in altern­ate mar­kets, two offi­cials said.

The coun­try risk rat­ings of 24 coun­tries were upgraded under short-term exports after a review, said the offi­cials, ask­ing not to be named. Often, shortterm exports involve the real­isa­tion of the order amount within one year. ECGC—erstwhile the Export Credit Guar­an­tee Cor­por­a­tion of India—sup­por­ted exports worth ₹8.55 lakh crore in 2024-25, over 16.3% annu­al­ised growth. Its net profit in FY25 was ₹2,077 crore, a 3.8% dip from ₹2,159 crore in FY24.

A com­merce min­istry’s year­ en­der con­firmed the devel­op­ment. “Amidst the global eco­nomic uncer­tainty and the likely trade dis­rup­tion caused by the US tar­iff hike, ECGC has under­taken stra­tegic review of coun­try rat­ings to lib­er­al­ize under­writ­ing and encour­age mar­ket diver­si­fic­a­tion,” it said. India’s trade diver­si­fic­a­tion strategy helped the coun­try to post about 2.62% annu­al­ised growth in mer­chand­ise

exports to $292 bil­lion in April-Novem­ber 2025 as export­ers braved 50% tar­iff in the US mar­ket.

“This would assist export­ers, par­tic­u­larly MSEs (micro and small enter­prises), in de-risk­ing their busi­ness and explor­ing new export des­tin­a­tions such as Latin Amer­ica, the Middle East, Africa, East Asia, and other emer­ging mar­kets, thereby redu­cing over-expos­ure to mar­kets affected by tar­iffs, pro­tec­tion­ist policies or restrict­ive mar­ket access,” it added.

The ECGC review has ana­lysed those coun­tries that are affected by the recent geo­pol­it­ical events, along with those hav­ing

high poten­tial for a mutu­ally bene­fi­cial trade rela­tion­ship with India, the offi­cials said. Coun­tries assessed include India’s stra­tegic part­ners as well as coun­tries with poten­tial for trade growth, they said.

The review upgraded Bhutan, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Congo, El Sal­vador, Erit­rea, Ghana, Hon­duras, Kenya, Liberia, Malay­sia, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Panama, Peru, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Trin­idad and Tobago, Tur­key, Uganda, Uruguay, Venezuela and Zam­bia.

“In view of the increased uncer­tainty in the global trade land­scape, it is imper­at­ive for the Indian export sec­tor to explore and develop altern­at­ive mar­kets, includ­ing new mar­ket des­tin­a­tion coun­tries… Post the upgrad­a­tion in coun­try rat­ings, the premium rates applic­able for vari­ous ECGC policies will pro­por­tion­ally reduce, as the premium rates depend primar­ily on the coun­try rat­ing of the coun­try of des­tin­a­tion of goods,” one of the offi­cials said.

Higher risks involve higher insur­ance premi­ums. While A1 denotes a min­imal or “insig­ni­fic­ant” risk cat­egory, A2 is low risk, B1 (mod­er­ately low risk), B2 (mod­er­ate risk), C1 (mod­er­ately high risk), C2 (high risk) and D is very high risk.

Accord­ing to the recent review, Malay­sia, Sweden, and Uruguay have been upgraded from A2 to A1. Bhutan, Panama, Peru, South Africa, and Trin­idad and Tobago have been clas­si­fied from B1 to A2.

Upgrad­a­tion is two notches up in the case of Tur­key, from B2 to A2. Cape Verde, Hon­duras, Nicaragua, Nigeria and Uganda have been moved up from B2 to B1.

While Kenya and Liberia have been moved from C1 to the higher cat­egory of B2, El Sal­vador, Ghana, Sri Lanka and Venezuela moved up from C2 to C1. A two-notch jump from D to C1 is seen in two cases—Zam­bia and Erit­rea. Sim­il­arly, Cameroon also moved up from the very high-risk cat­egory (D) to C2.