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 recently appointed director of InvestChile, Andrés Rodríguez, reviewed the Agency’s main activities in 2020 and presented an analysis of the evolution of foreign investment in the context of the pandemic.

The Ministers of Public Works, Foreign Relations, Energy, Mining and Agriculture also participated in the meeting.

The meeting was informed about how the Agency had reoriented its work around three central axes: the retention of investment and operational continuity, supporting companies already established in Chile so they did not freeze their investment plans; the materialization of projects, facilitating the implementation of those projects already under development and at risk of being halted by the pandemic; and innovation in investment attraction, including measures such as an increase in the use of digital tools, a two-fold increase in the number of remote interactions with companies, the generation of content relevant for decision-making and the organization of 12 high-value activities in which over 5,000 executives from 15 countries participated.

The Agency also drew attention to its work in the technology sector. This permitted the installation of data centers by companies such as Google, Huawei, AWS and Ascenty as well as decisions on projects such as that recently announced by Microsoft, which will involve the company’s largest investment in the country in 28 years and will generate over US$11,300 million in revenues and create 51,000 jobs over the next four years.

Minister Palacios noted that “throughout this year, we have carried out important work in this field, convinced of the key role that investment plays in the economy’s growth [as] the driver of our country’s economic reactivation and a great generator of employment in the current context.”

The director of InvestChile, Andrés Rodríguez, indicated that “we want to deepen the work we are doing, both to attract new investment and to support the materialization of projects that are already underway. We are convinced that foreign investment will play a fundamental role in economic recovery and will mean – among other benefits – more jobs for Chilean men and women; that is the objective towards which the Agency is gearing its efforts.”