Harza Engineering Company is a global leader in engineering and environmental consulting with over 75 years experience in the development of water, energy, and land resource projects that protect and improve the environment.
We are an independent organization owned by our professional employees. The company employs over 700 full-time personnel, who are experienced in the fields of civil, structural, geotechnical, sanitary, electrical, and mechanical engineering; agricultural, hydrology, geology, environmental sciences, resource economy, financial and permitting. Our multi-national staff speak at least 25 foreign languages.
Foreign assignments represent about 50% of our $100-million yearly revenues and the firm has worked in more than 90 countries around the world.
Presently, Harza has more than thirty major assignments overseas. Twelve of these assignments are for hydroelectric facilities, which have an aggregate capacity of more than 15,000 MW.
Harza also has extensive experience in the preparation of environmental assessments in accordance with the guidelines of international financing agencies.
Harza has had extensive involvement with multilateral donor organizations, host-country government institutions, and non-governmental organizations in the design and implementation of major water and power projects.
Over the past 8 years, Harza has arranged and implemented eight projects financed through Ex-Im Bank. These projects have resulted in over $250 million in U.S. exports in markets with significant European competition. It is very unlikely that the client governments would have imported any of these U.S. equipment and services without an Ex-Im Bank guarantee. Harza has been unable to find any source for or interest in private financing for these projects at competitive rates.
All projects that Harza has managed with Ex-Im Bank guarantees are classified by the Bank as environmentally beneficial . The equipment and services have improved water and sewage treatment infrastructure and reduced subsidies from central governments to water utilities by improving the host utilities' efficiency. For example, U.S. equipment and services have completed a water invoicing system for the City of Caracas, Venezuela, reducing waste and losses and U.S. pumps, valves, and control systems are providing reliable potable water delivery to other communities in Latin America.
Harza has contracted directly with over 50 U.S. companies for equipment and service exports to new markets for these companies. There is also a significant ripple effect involved, since each of these 50 companies receive raw materials and finished goods from their network of U.S. suppliers. Through Ex-Im Bank guarantees, we have developed new markets and clients, for follow-on services and after-sales markets for spare parts that will last at least as long as the life of their equipment, in many cases as long as thirty years.
These same Ex-Im Bank guarantees have been successful in creating new jobs in the United States. At Harza alone, we have a department with 20 employees dedicated to trade finance services.
Ex-Im Bank provides an equal basis for U.S. industry to compete with the export assistance programs of Japan, Canada, and the European community. The volume of exports, improvement in the quality of life of our client populations, the improvement and protection of the environment, and the creation of U.S. jobs are all benefits of Ex-Im Bank financing. The fact that we are able to cite these examples attests to the success of Ex-Im Bank, and provides the measure of Ex-Im Bank's effectiveness.
Our clients frequently consider: offers from competing foreign exporters supported by their respective export credit agency, Harza's Ex-Im Bank guaranteed proposal, or postponement of the project. Private sector financing is unavailable, or prohibitively expensive. U.S. companies cannot compete in these markets without the availability of the Ex-Im Bank program.
With Ex-Im Bank's recent program initiatives and revision of terms, Harza has penetrated markets which had previously been controlled by European exporters through their countries' export assistance programs. This has been accomplished by leveling the financial playing field.
The Ex-Im Bank, legislation explicitly states that "It is further the policy of the United States that loans made by the Bank in all its programs shall bear interest at rates...consistent with the Bank's mandate to support United States exports at rates and on terms and conditions which are fully competitive with exports of other countries, and consistent with international agreements. For the purpose of the preceding sentence, rates and terms and conditions... should be established so that the effect of such rates, terms, and conditions for all the Bank's programs, including those for small businesses and for medium-term financing, will be to neutralize the effect of such foreign credit on international sales competition."
As long as other industrialized nations aggressively promote exports through
export assistance programs developed and subsidized by their national authority, the United
States government must provide similar assistance if U.S. business is to compete overseas.
If there is to be an effort to reduce export subsidies, it should be directed through the international agency
vested with oversight responsibility, the Office of Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD). Unilateral action by the United States on this issue will result in negative effects for
United States business. Until the rest of the world abolishes export subsidies in practice, the
underlying cause for Ex-Im Bank's existence will not change, and thus Ex-Im Bank should be
allowed to fulfill its original mandate.
Home | Menu | Links | Info | Chairman's Page