In the event that a debtor country is temporarily unable to repay its external public debt (debts to creditors that are public institutions such as central governments, trade insurance agencies and export credit agencies) due to a decline in its balance of payments, meetings of creditor countries (the “Paris Club”) may be held to discuss debt relief measures. When creditor countries agree on debt relief measures, debt rescheduling agreements between the creditors and a debtor are agreed, and repayments are made according to the agreements. During this temporary liquidity assistance effort, the debtor country implements an economic reform program pursuant to an agreement with the IMF and continues repayments of its debts. The principal amount of loans as of March 31, 2019, of which JBIC agreed to provide debt relief pursuant to the Paris Club agreements was ¥88,536 million.
JBIC classifies its loans rescheduled under the Paris Club made to borrowers classified under the Banking Law self assessment as “Watchlisted”, but not “Loans with interest or principal repayments three months or more in arrears”, as “Restructured loans.” The amount of such loans as of March 31, 2019, included in “Restructured loans” in the above table, is ¥56,684 million.
Risk Management
As a policy-lending institution, JBIC separately manages the major risks of Ordinary Operations and Special Operations in the following manner.
Credit Risk
Managing credit risk
The basis of credit risk management is centered on individual credit management based on the creditworthiness of the borrower during the credit approval process.
When a new credit application is processed, the relevant finance departments (sales promotion departments) and credit departments collect and analyze information on the borrower. The overseas representative offices also play a part in collecting information on foreign governments and corporations. Credit appraisal takes place based on the information that has been gathered and analyzed, with the different departments ensuring appropriate check throughout the process, leading to the final decision by the management.
For lending to foreign governments and corporations, JBIC makes use of its position as a public institution and exchanges views and information with governments and other authorities in recipient countries, international institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank, other regional development banks and official export credit agencies as well as private financial institutions in the industrial countries. Using all these channels, JBIC evaluates sovereign or country risk (risk in addition to corporate risk associated with the country in which the corporation is located) based on a broad range of information on government and government agency borrowers as well as political and economic conditions in their countries.
For credit to domestic and foreign corporations, there is a need to evaluate their creditworthiness and the appropriateness of the collateral they provide. In particular, for credit related to projects overseas, credit evaluation involves checking the certainty of transactions to be financed, feasibility studies of projects and the industry in which the borrower operates.
Credit risk rating
JBIC has institutionalized its credit risk rating system that covers substantially all of its borrowers. JBIC uses its credit risk ratings for loan appraisals and to quantify its credit risks. Further, the credit risk rating system has been revised where necessary.
Asset self assessment
As part of its credit risk management, JBIC undertakes self assessments, similar to Japanese private financial institutions. In this process, JBIC, following the examples of private financial institutions, conducts first stage assessments by the relevant finance departments, second stage assessments by the credit and country economic analysis departments, and inspections by an independent auditing department. The results of asset self assessment are used for the disclosure of the quality of assets to enhance the transparency of JBIC’s financial position.
Quantifying credit risks
Besides the individual credit management outlined above, credit risks are quantified to assess the overall risk of the portfolio in these operations. To quantify credit risks, it is important to take into account the characteristic of the loan portfolio, that there are a significant proportion of long-term loans and loans involving sovereign risk or country risk. Also to be taken into account is the mechanism of securing assets, such as the framework of international financial assistance to debtor countries through the Paris Club, which is unique to official creditors. This account uses a unique model to quantify the credit risk taking account of the above explained elements and measures amount of credit risk, which are utilized for credit risk management.
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