• The activities begin this week in Colombia and Peru where representatives of InvestChile will meet with more than 50 companies. In August, they will continue in Brazil in the cities of Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte and São Paulo.

In a bid to attract greater investment from other South American countries, InvestChile, the Chilean government’s foreign investment promotion agency, has announced a series of unprecedented activities in Peru, Colombia and Brazil.

According to UNCTAD’s latest World Investment Report, Chile is Latin America’s largest overseas investor and has a stock of more than US$70,000 million in foreign investment in other countries in the region. Now, it is seeking to attract companies from those countries to do business in Chile, indicated the director of InvestChile, Cristián Rodríguez. This week, in Bogotá and Lima, it is, therefore, launching “Roadshow Latam”, a program of events organized jointly with local business associations that will continue in August with activities in Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte and São Paulo.

InvestChile is currently promoting a portfolio of 123 public projects, worth more than US$3,700 million, in sectors such as infrastructure, tourism, mining and energy. In addition, the agency is publicizing information about future tenders in areas that include the production of lithium with added value, the Asia-Latin America submarine telecommunications cable initiative and the implementation of 5G.

The Roadshow will begin today with a meeting with more than 30 Colombian companies in Bogotá, held in conjunction with the National Association of Businesspeople of Colombia (ANDI), and a series of bilateral meetings with local companies. Colombia is an important investor in Chile, with a stock of investment that reached US$5,142 million in 2017, accounting for 4.4% of total investment from other South American countries.

The activities will continue on Thursday, June 26, in Lima when the agency will meet with more than 25 companies in an event organized together with Peru’s National Confederation of Private Business Institutions (CONFIEP) and will also hold individual meetings. Peruvian companies have increasingly been investing in Chile, a trend that InvestChile aims to boost, although the stock of investment, at US$618 million in 2017, remains small.

Brazil: The next challenge

With a stock of investment of US$10,038 million in Chile, Brazil is by far Chile’s largest Latin American investor and accounts for 8.5% of the total stock of investment from all the American continent. Brazilian companies have invested in sectors such as finance, agribusiness and technology but investment promotion has so far not focused on this market in an intensive manner.

“Over the last year, we have seen growing interest from Brazilian companies, which we want to reinforce through concrete actions such as these visits, which will include three cities, and the launch of our first Investor’s Guide in Portuguese, which will facilitate the arrival of more companies from Brazil,” pointed out the director of InvestChile. “In the space of a year, our portfolio of projects has increased from US$124 million to US$367 million, with a marked emphasis on the technology area and the food industry. Brazilian companies see opportunities in our country and we want to transform that interest into concrete projects,” added Rodríguez.