• Following welcoming remarks by InvestChile Director Karla Flores, the presentation focused on the Agency’s Regional Strategy.

Executives from InvestChile, Chile’s foreign investment promotion agency, offered a virtual presentation to government officials outside Santiago. Representatives from Chile’s fifteen regions attended the training to enhance their skills and knowledge regarding promoting and attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) beyond the country’s capital city.

Following welcoming remarks by InvestChile Director Karla Flores, the presentation focused on the Agency’s Regional Strategy, the primary potential impacts of FDI in each region and actions to promote pro-investment ecosystems at the regional level. It covered the importance of creating a regional value offer, identifying strategic investment opportunities, offering regional investor services and using marketing strategies and subnational brand development to position Chile’s regions.

“Last year, 103 projects from 43 countries totaling US$14.7 billion in investment set up operations in the country with support from InvestChile. The fifty-one projects outside Santiago represented 85% of the total investment. The message is clear: Foreign companies are looking beyond Santiago to set up or expand operations,” noted Flores.

One example of the impact of foreign investment outside Santiago is Sofserve, the Ukrainian services company operating in the Ñuble region and planning to launch operations soon in Chillán.

Executives from the company presented the “FDI Regional Coordination Platform” pilot program, a digital tool developed in partnership with the IDB, to articulate FDI promotion efforts at the national and subnational levels. The regional governments with current InvestChile agreements (Arica and Parinacota, Tarapacá, Maule, Ñuble, Los Ríos, Aysén and Magallanes) will implement the tool shortly.