The Committee, chaired by the Minister of Economy, Economic Development and Tourism, Luis Felipe Céspedes, held its last meeting under the current institutional framework after Congress approved elimination of the DL 600 Foreign Investment Statute.

The Minister of Economy, Economic Development and Tourism, Luis Felipe Céspedes, today chaired the last meeting of the Foreign Investment Committee which authorized 49 investment applications for a total of US$11,600 million, principally in the energy, mining, infrastructure and agricultural sectors.

After the meeting, Minister Céspedes drew attention to the country’s decision to implement an active foreign investment attraction policy. “The authorization of a total of US$11,600 million in foreign investment is good news, clearly showing that investment is coming to Chile because, as both the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the OECD have pointed out, it offers guarantees,” said Céspedes.

“We will work hard to implement a foreign investment attraction policy that permits diversification of our production matrix,” he added.

The executive vice-president of CIEChile, Vicente Mira, noted that “we are completing a very important stage as regards investment attraction, moving from a passive policy as a host country to a proactive policy of going out to look for the foreign investment we need in order to meet our development goals.”

In June 2015, President Michelle Bachelet promulgated Law Nº 20.848 which comes into force as from January 2016 and establishes a new institutional framework for the promotion and attraction of foreign investment. As well as eliminating the existing DL 600 Foreign Investment Statute, the new law creates the Foreign Investment Promotion Agency as the legal successor of the present Foreign Investment Committee.

The last meeting of the Foreign Investment Committee was attended by Energy Minister, Máximo Pacheco; the Undersecretaries of Finance, Alejandro Micco, Social Development, Heidi Berner, and Public Works, Sergio Galilea; the Vice-President of the Central Bank, Sebastián Claro; CIEChile’s Executive Vice-President, Vicente Mira; its Legal Counsel, Liliana Macchiavello; the lawyer Manuel Canessa; and, in representation of CIEChile’s Research Area, Daisy Kohan.