How strategic investment has redrawn the geography of export credit

Europe and North America have taken a growing share of ECA MLT business since 2022. A comparison with international investment flows explores what lies behind this reorientation.

Has ECA MLT business concentrated?

ECAs committed an average of around USD 161 billion a year of medium- and long-term (MLT) export credit in 2023–25, close to the previous peak of 2010–12, but the geography of that business has changed. Since 2022, an increasing share has gone to borrowers in Europe and North America, which for most of the previous two decades accounted for between a third and two-fifths of the market – well below the share they hold today. This raises the question of market concentration.

One way to measure the change is the effective number of regions, the reciprocal of the Herfindahl-Hirschman index (HHI), which gives the number of equally sized markets that would produce the same degree of concentration. On a three-year rolling basis, the effective number of regions held between 6.2 and 7.1, out of a possible eight[1], from 2005 to 2021, through the financial crisis, the euro-area debt crisis, and the commodity price crash. Since 2022, however, it has fallen in every period, to 5.0 in 2023–25 and 4.2 in 2025 alone.

Commitments to Europe and North America rose from USD 45.7 billion in 2019 to USD 102.4 billion in 2025, while those to the rest of the world fell from USD 78.8 billion to USD 65.3 billion, even before adjusting for inflation. The two regions accounted for most new business for the first time in 2024, and for 61% of it in 2025. The reallocation began in Europe, on the back of the pursuit of energy security and transition, defence, and cruise ships, and the United States became the largest single market for ECAs in 2023, with USD 20.7 billion of commitments, and again in 2025, with USD 31.9 billion.

Figure 1: ECA MLT New Commitments Regional Concentration
Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI), 3-year rolling average, 2005-2025
Source: Berne Union

The recent proliferation of large cruise ship transactions might be expected to account for much of this concentration, since the financings are large and the order book stretches several years ahead. Excluding transportation altogether, however, still leaves 5.4 effective regions in 2023–25, with the same turning point in 2022, which suggests that project and industrial business has moved in the same direction.

The market has therefore become materially more concentrated by region, but not because ECA business has clustered in a handful of large asset financings, which tend to be domiciled in a small group of countries. The more important change has been the growing weight of Europe and North America within the overall book, a shift that may reflect a broader reorientation of international investment.

Does the geography of ECA business reflect international investment?

MLT export credit often finances the purchase of capital goods for large projects, which makes UNCTAD’s figures for announced greenfield investment, recording new foreign-owned projects by the location of the project, a suitable benchmark. Because projects are usually announced a year or more before their financing is agreed, ECA business would be expected to trail investment rather than move with it.

When it comes to the shift towards high-income economies, the two series have followed each other closely. The shares of greenfield investment and ECA commitments going to Europe and North America both stayed between 32% and 37% from 2005–07 to 2016–18[2]. Investment shifted first, its share rising to 48.9% in 2020–22, and ECA business followed two to three years later, reaching 51.3% in 2023–25.

Figure 2: Combined Europe and North America Market Share
Announced greenfield investment, 3-year rolling average, 2005-2025
ECA MLT New Commitments, 3-year rolling average, 2005-2025
Source: UNCTAD, Berne Union

Where the two part ways is outside the high-income markets. Between 2017–19 and 2023–25, announced greenfield investment in Europe and North America rose 82% and ECA commitments to the two regions rose 77%. Investment in the rest of the world grew by 39%, led by South Asia, MENA, and Latin America, yet ECA commitments there were essentially unchanged. ECAs have therefore followed the redirection of investment towards Europe and North America remarkably closely but have not so far shared in its wider growth.

That difference shows up in concentration. Greenfield investment has not become more geographically concentrated, because its shift was largely from East Asia, whose share fell from 29% in 2005–07 to 20%, to North America, whose share rose from 8% to 20%. A move from the largest region to a smaller one left the overall distribution little changed, and announced greenfield investment stood at 5.8 effective regions in 2023–25, slightly more than two decades earlier. ECA business, historically the more geographically diversified of the two, is now the more concentrated.

What has caused this shift?

The pull towards Europe and North America in announced greenfield investment and ECA MLT business becomes clearer when looking at the sectors attracting capital. UNCTAD’s latest World Investment Report identifies AI infrastructure, semiconductors, critical minerals, and energy-transition technologies and services as strategic sectors that accounted for 44% of global greenfield project values in 2025, up from 16% in 2020. Low-income and lower-middle-income economies attracted only around 10% of investment in these sectors between 2020 and 2025, however, compared with more than 20% in other sectors[3].

ECA business has taken a similar route, though with some differences. Large-scale energy projects, power storage and transmission, and the production and refining of critical minerals all sit within areas that governments increasingly regard as strategically important. ECAs, as instruments of state policy, have been well placed to finance them. Defence, which has no counterpart in greenfield data, has moved from the periphery to the centre of the export finance market since European rearmament began in 2022, while cruise ships have added a further layer of volume.

The clearest difference is data centres, which led the growth in greenfield investment, with the sector’s greenfield values rising by more than 80% in 2025. So far these have involved private credit and political risk insurers more than ECAs, as banks have turned to private cover for capital relief and to manage the concentration of very large exposures. Digital infrastructure does not fall into the BU data taxonomy, but the private market has seen substantial demand for cover around these projects.

The current policy landscape points to further investment in strategic sectors and a continued tilt in ECA business towards high-income markets. Japan’s commitment of up to USD 550 billion of investment, lending, and guarantees in the United States is being delivered partly through ECA support[4], and South Korea’s USD 350 billion US investment commitment includes USD 150 billion for shipbuilding[5], which will undoubtedly feature ECA financing. In Europe, NATO’s commitment to spend 5% of GDP on defence by 2035 will sustain demand for defence export credit for years; and if data centre financing also outgrows private market capacity, the concentration is likely to deepen further.