asked the Secretary of State for Trade whether, following upon the Chancellor's Budget Statement of 15th April, the ECGD is now providing facilities to guarantee loans for pre-shipment finance; and what is the scale of these facilities.

An outline facility has been drawn up. Discussions on this are being actively pursued with the banks, but there are problems which have still to be resolved. When the scheme has been finalised an announcement will be made. The timing of this will to a large extent depend on the banks, but I hope it will be in the near future. Meanwhile ECGD will consider particular cases where both the exporter and his banker wish to bring them forward.