The initiative will help to bring the region’s potential to the attention of foreign investors who are looking at Chile and, particularly, the north of the country as a possible location for their projects.

InvestChile and the Coquimbo Regional Government have signed a Collaboration Agreement to promote foreign investment in the region as a means of fostering development and innovation.

The signing of the agreement was attended by Public Works Minister Alberto Undurraga, Regional Governor Claudio Ibáñez, the director of InvestChile, Carlos Álvarez, and the manager of the Regional Development Corporation (CRDP), Cristián Osorio, as well as a delegation of Argentine businesspeople and authorities led by the governor of the San Juan Province, Sergio Uñac.

The director of InvestChile indicated that the agreement will help to bring the Coquimbo Region’s potential to the attention of foreign investors who are looking at Chile and, particularly, the north of the country as a possible location for their projects.

“The task is to increase awareness of all the opportunities the region offers in fields such as non-conventional renewable energy (NCRE), sophisticated, functional and natural foods, mining technology and services and nature tourism, all areas in which there are great opportunities and in which InvestChile is working each day to attract investors from around the world,” said Álvarez.

Regional Governor Claudio Ibáñez emphasized that “as a region, we are implementing an investment attraction program in a quest to bring new capital to the Coquimbo Region.”

Under the agreement, InvestChile has undertaken to actively promote projects and activities in the region through its network of overseas offices, which currently consolidate Chile’s presence in the United States, Japan and Germany and will soon also include China. 

Central Bi-Oceanic Corridor

Public Works Minister Alberto Undurraga announced that a tender for the Agua Negra Tunnel will be called in January 2018. This tunnel is key for completion of the Central Bi-Oceanic Corridor, which will run from Porto Alegre in Brazil to Coquimbo.

The governor of Argentina’s San Juan Province, Sergio Uñac, who attended the reopening of the Agua Negra border crossing, expressed his appreciation of coordination between the two regions in promoting and implementing the bi-oceanic corridor project, which will consolidate relations between San Juan and Coquimbo and foster trade, entrepreneurship and cultural exchange. 

“It is a mega project through which we are going to change the present and the future, achieving a region’s balanced development and the promise of growth, which is what interests us as political authorities,” indicated Uñac.