• During the meeting, the director of InvestChile, Cristián Rodríguez, reported on the Agency’s principal activities in 2019.

On Monday, the Minister of Economy, Economic Development and Tourism, Lucas Palacios, chaired a meeting of the Committee of Ministers for the Promotion and Attraction of Foreign Investment. During the meeting, the director of InvestChile, Cristián Rodríguez, reported on the Agency’s principal activities in 2019 and its plans and strategy for 2020.

The meeting was also attended by the Minister of Finance, Ignacio Briones; the Minister of Foreign Relations, Teodoro Ribera; the Undersecretary for Energy, Francisco Javier López; the Undersecretary for Agriculture, José Ignacio Pinochet; and the Undersecretary for International Economic Relations, Rodrigo Yáñez.

The meeting was informed about the main aspects of InvestChile’s proposed new strategy, including the elimination of specific sectors and a shift to a criterion of inter-sector work with projects that help to create permanent jobs and have the potential to develop capital human or contribute to innovation and productivity gains through the transfer of technology.

The Minister of Economy, Lucas Palacios, stressed the importance of having a much more proactive and flexible strategy for the attraction of foreign direct investment (FDI) through which to position Chile as a destination for high value-added projects. “Our country needs investment that involves technology, innovation and sophistication of human capital and makes us more competitive in the region and the rest of the world and, at the same time, allows us to create more high-quality jobs for our citizens,” he said.

The director of InvestChile, Cristián Rodríguez, added that the retention of investment or aftercare and policy advocacy will also be priorities. “On retention, the comparative evidence indicates that 50% of the jobs created by FDI come from already established clients. Policy advocacy will be geared to institutional and state efforts to attract investment in a context of permanent ties and coordination with the private sector,” said Rodríguez.

Between January and November 2019, FDI in Chile reached US$10,615 million, representing an increase of 4% on the first 11 months of 2018.