Iranian contractors and companies who wish to conclude cross-border contracts for the export of their services, equipment, machinery or manufactured goods in the form of EPC contracts or participate in international tenders for this purpose, are often forced to provide a bank guarantee in the tender as an integral part of the tender documents. Also, after winning the tender, depending on the conditions stated in the tender, in order to receive the advance payment and ensure the employer/foreign buyer, the Iranian side must provide an advance payment guarantees, performance bond guarantee, or other types of guarantees required by the foreign employers.
Under normal banking and economic conditions and international trade, this group of Iranian contractors and companies can apply for the above bank guarantees by referring to their banks. However, due to the special conditions governing the application of banking and commercial restrictions against Iran in recent years, export companies were not able to obtain such guarantees from the banking system.
In such a situation, Export Guarantee Fund of Iran, by obtaining legal permits from the Government and its decision-making bodies, prepared the necessary background for issuing the required types of guarantees as a substitute for the banking system, so that despite the absence of banking communication tools such as SWIFT, the Fund managed to provide the guarantees required by exporters and contractors in accordance with the standards of the World Bank under URDG rules 758, 2010 version. Also, the Fund made the necessary arrangements with the consular department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the embassies of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the target countries to verify the authenticity of guarantees and issue formal notification letters to foreign employers /buyers to accept the guarantees as a 100% irrevocable and unconditional commitment of EGFI on behalf of the Government of I.R of Iran.