Sydney-based cooking appliances manufacturer, Cimbre Pty Ltd, is making the most of an export window of opportunity with the support of Export Finance and Insurance Corporation (EFIC) and Westpac.

With 12 years in the cooking appliances industry, first as a trading company and then as a manufacturer, Cimbre has three patents pending for innovative stove design features that have already helped win export orders in Italy.

EFIC Headway – a financial guarantee from EFIC to participating banks – was critical in enabling Cimbre to advance its export plans.

As Cimbre managing director, Ottavio Cimino, explains, design innovations have a competitive life span of no more than two years and that means seizing export opportunities as quickly as possible.

“We were typically spending a lot of money on research and development, so there was always a shortage of working capital to finance the exporting side of the business,” Mr Cimino said.

“EFIC Headway enabled our bank to provide additional finance and that means we can start looking at export opportunities for our new designs.”

With production of the new designs soon to begin, Cimbre is also looking beyond Italy for export opportunities elsewhere in Europe, in the United States and in the Middle East.

“Our export opportunities are mainly in Western markets but we also see opportunities in countries such as India where there are growing numbers of well-off consumers,” said Mr Cimino.

Participating banks