The Berne Union and its affiliate the Prague Club, held their first joint Annual General Meetings in London, celebrating 80 years of supporting trade and investment, jointly covering 11% of international cross-border trade and investments.

The association’s members provide risk mitigation products to exporters and investors, helping companies to safely trade internationally. The meeting was an occasion to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Berne Union as well.

For the first time, the Berne Union was joined by members of its affiliate, the Prague Club. The Prague Club, which was established in 1993, aims to support new and maturing export credit agencies and insurers setting up and developing export credit and investment insurance schemes. Karim Nasrallah, GM of LCI, was elected Chair of the Prague Club in early 2014, and will continue to serve his term until the next Annual General Meeting in 2015.

With 76 private and public member companies from around the world, the Berne Union and the Prague Club have grown to be the leading global organization for the export credit and investment insurance industry, together providing risk protection for 11% of world trade.

In the first half of 2014, Berne Union members insured $50 billion of new Foreign Direct Investment and $74 billion of new medium to long term exports. The credit limits extended to support short term exports reached $1,640 billion.

Mr. Karim Nasrallah attended the meeting both in his capacity as General Manager of LCI and as chairman of the Prague Club. He was also the moderator of the breakout session titled: Accessing markets through innovative partnerships.

The next meetings of the Berne Union and the Prague Club will be their respective spring separate meetings in May/June 2015.

For the full press release, click here.