Hat tip, Trainorders: GE's export locomotive business in jeopardy
Exclusive: GE says to lose Angola locomotive deal if Ex-Im Bank closes
Business | Tue May 19, 2015 5:32pm EDT
WASHINGTON | By David Lawder
General Electric Co would lose a $350-million deal to build locomotives for Angola, and perhaps billions of dollars more in future export opportunities, if Congress closes the U.S. Export-Import Bank, a senior GE executive told Reuters. ... "It would be gone," GE Transportation unit president Russell Stokes said of a not-yet-finalized agreement announced by the global conglomerate in March for 100 lightweight diesel-electric locomotives to be built in Erie, Pennsylvania.
Up to 1,800 jobs at GE, its suppliers and local businesses in 12 states would be put at risk because, without Ex-Im financing, Angola would buy Chinese-built locomotives, he said.
GE, along with other major U.S. exporters including Boeing Co and business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, is fighting to save the Ex-Im Bank. The export credit agency's critics, mostly conservative Republicans, want Congress to allow Ex-Im's charter to expire on June 30.
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The bank's opponents argue that its loans put taxpayers at risk, distort free enterprise and amount to "corporate welfare." GE reported revenues of $149 billion and profits of $15 billion in 2014. ... "GE should seek private financing if it wants the Angola deal to go through," said David McIntosh, president of the conservative Club for Growth, an advocacy group allied with Republican politicians attacking Ex-Im. "It's not the role of the federal government to secure sales for GE."
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