October 2014 has started with a new training seminar organized by INVENT Moldova, with the highly appreciated support of GIZ. This time the association’s members were invited to explore a specific financing instrument known today under the name of Hermes Cover. More precisely, this instrument is a German export credit guarantee and it presumes that the state assumes the majority of the payment default risk arising from the export towards countries rated with a high level of risk. This guarantee offered by the German Federal Government is provided by two private intermediates, acting on its behalf: Euler Hermes Kreditversicherungs-AG (the lead, and the name’s origin) and PWC.

The training’s attenders had the great opportunity to be offered the information from the source itself: Mr. Andreas Steinborn – the coach and speaker of the training – has a 20 years long work experience at Euler Hermes Kreditversicherungs-AG. Since 2005, Mr. Steinborn had also been in charge with establishing the Euler-Hermes Unit in Russia, and today he is managing DELCREDA, a company he has founded, that provides credit management services, mainly for the Russian and CIS markets.

It goes without saying that apart a very explicit presentation, the participants could get professionals answers and explanations to all their questions, thoughts or doubts.

As to the subject itself, most of the participants confessed in their feedbacks that they were not acquainted with this instrument before. A particular interest was shown by the participants whose businesses operate with imported material: raw material, various equipment (mostly discussed was the imported medical equipment), etc. Some of the issues discussed in this sense concerned the conditions the foreign dealers have to comply with in order to obtain the Hermes cover and eventually the extent to which national companies can contribute to facilitating this process. Regarding the participants interested in export, while agreeing that this instrument is not easily accessible to Moldovan producers, they could receive detailed clarifications from Mr. Steinborn on the factors influencing their eligibility, and on some specific schemes they could apply in order to benefit from an export credit guarantee.

The Hermes cover subject has been diversified by the intervention of the special invitee – Mr. Vitalie Dragancea, the General director of the National Institute of Standardization and Metrology. His speech brought into discussion a comparison between the standardization methods applied in Moldova and those used in the EU Countries, focusing on issues regarding the imported goods.