The revenue generated through interest and discount for the year stood at Rs 602.01 crore for the current year as against Rs 535.92 crore for the previous year , a growth of 12.3 per cent.

Lower profit is due to the high funding cost with increasing recourse to market borrowings.

Exim Bank's sanctions for the year increased by 54 per cent to Rs 2,832 crore over its previous year while disbursments increased by 36 per cent to Rs 1,730 crore. The outstanding loans as on March 31,2000 increased by 19 per cent over the previous year to 5,083.32 crore. Exim Bank of India, which had accessed low cost funds from the Indian government till 1992-93, had to subsequently resort entirely to the market to raise funds.

During the year, the bank raised Rs 800 crore through private placement and US $ 100 million through long term dollar-rupee swaps. The $ 100 million loan was raised at Libor plus one per cent. "The bank intends to raise Rs 800 crore during the second half of the current financial year", Exim Bank, managing director, YB Desai said. uThe borrowing will have tenor-mix of one to five years, Desai said.

"The banks non-performing assets were 7.5 per cent", Desai said. This was more on account of the defaults from Iraq and a few lines of credit, Desai clarified. The bank has requested the Indian government to issue Iraqi bonds and towards the unrecovered component.

During the year, Exim Bank was able to recover dues from the old lines of credit to Algeria, Seychelles and Vietnam, which had been considered doubtful, Desai revealed.

Exim Bank had in the year signed an MOU with the US Exim Bank to provide US $ 500 million credit to it for financing imports of US goods and technology by Indian companies. Exim Bank of India proposes to sign an agreement pursuant to the MOU to initiate the process of business this year. During the year, Exim Bank had sanctioned loans worth Rs 173 crore to 12 companies, under the technology upgradation fund scheme (TUFS). The government of India has designated Exim Bank as primary lending institution under TUFS for textile and jute industries. Other inititatives drawn during the year include, financing the research & development activities of export oriented units at concessional interest rates, short term finance for corporates besides picking up equity in Agricultural Finance Corporation Ltd to export agro-based technology from India to other developing countries.