The Korea Trade Insurance Corporation, known as K-sure, said Tuesday it has been selected as the best Asian export credit agency by the U.K.-based Trade Finance Magazine.

K-sure is one of the country’s two export-import insurance agencies other than the Export-Import Bank. It provides insurance products and project financing and issue bonds to exporters for their shipment, overseas construction works, overseas investment, foreign exchange and other risks.

It has won the Award of Excellence twice in 2008 and 2009, which the British finance magazine has been granting to Asian credit agencies since 2006.

Judges include finance experts at global commercial banks, international export credit agencies and law firms, K-sure said.

K-sure attributed the achievement to a total of $6.1 billion overseas project financing it provided last year, drawing in participation from global commercial institutions.

The state-run company plans to offer guarantees worth $7.4 billion this year for overseas resources, plant and shipbuilding works in Africa, the Middle East and Central and Latin Africa.

To that aim, it forged cooperation agreements in February with 27 financial institutions at home and abroad.

“The award proved K-sure’s position in the global project financing market,” a company official said. “We’ll reinforce support for Korean companies to take part in overseas projects by bringing in investment from local commercial banks, public institutions and regional development banks like Asia Development Bank.”

(heeshin@heraldcorp.com)