The pandemic has not stopped InvestChile, which last year carried out 90% of its work remotely and succeeded in improving the performance of its portfolio by 25.2%.

InvestChile, the Chilean government’s Foreign Investment Promotion Agency, presented a summary of the principal work it carried out last year in its 2020 Public Report. In his presentation, InvestChile Managing Director Andrés Rodríguez spoke about the changes that the agency has made to its strategy in order to continue promoting Chile as an attractive destination for foreign investment in a world with border restrictions due to the pandemic.

“We’ve changed the way in which we promote Chile, going from our traditional model of traveling and providing in-person services to one that combines online services and activities. We’ve focused on companies already established in Chile and on digital innovation,” Mr. Rodríguez explained.

Ninety percent of InvestChile’s work in 2020 took place remotely, which extended its scope. The InvestChile Talks initiative alone reached more than 5,121 Chilean and foreign contacts through 13 specialized webinars. In 2019, this public was limited to 1,000 company representatives through 169 activities in 23 countries.

InvestChile also stood out for pioneering the use of digital marketing to attract foreign investment, generating 262 company contacts and 27 projects worth US$209 million that could potentially generate 1,000 new jobs. The changes to the strategy positively impacted the figures for InvestChile’s portfolio of projects with year-on-year growth of 25.2% to US$22 billion, advice provided to 500 initiatives and the potential creation of over 15,000 jobs.

Among the other actions carried out by InvestChile over the past year, it has worked to coordinate special travel permits for essential foreign professionals during the closure of Chile’s borders. It has done this to support and facilitate the continued operation of investment projects already established in Chile and the development of new projects, where the support of foreign personnel was necessary for them to be able to continue functioning and their entire operation could otherwise have been endangered. InvestChile therefore took on this role with a view to avoiding the job losses that might have resulted from business closures and to enable the creation of new jobs – of vital importance given the pandemic and the economic crisis it has triggered.

Thus, between June and November, 2020, InvestChile processed around 470 applications, which resulted in safe travel permits being granted to non-residents to carry out specialized technical activities on 65 investment projects, obviously while still complying with all the mandatory health protocols. This work has allowed domestic and foreign projects worth US$32 billion to continue operating in Chile.

Future Plans

InvestChile is developing a number of highly active plans for the coming months, including the Invest in Chile Now initiative, an unprecedented strategy to proactively seek out leading businesses that are not currently established in Chile, but have the potential to invest here.

It will also focus on the Middle East, an area of enormous potential that has not yet been fully explored in terms of investment promotion but will now be targeted through ongoing coordination by InvestChile and international activities together with various industry-specific ministries and Chile’s network of offices around the world.

“During the second half of the year, we will be launching two very important initiatives. The first, alongside the Science Ministry, will be to make it possible for international laboratories to manufacture vaccines in Chile. The second will be getting investment visas to facilitate the arrival and operation of international companies. I hope to be able to share more details about these initiatives with you soon,” Mr. Rodríguez announced.