• This represented an increase of 346% on the first two months of last year and was the highest figure for the period since comparable records began.

In the first two months of this year, Chile received US$4,779 million in foreign direct investment (FDI), according to figures released this morning by the Central Bank of Chile. This represented an increase of 346% over the same period last year when the inflow reached US$1,071 million.

An inflow of US$444 million in February meant that the figure for the first two months was the highest since comparable records began in 2003. Over the past five years, FDI in the first two months has averaged US$3,119 million.

The director of InvestChile, Cristián Rodríguez, stressed the importance of the growth of FDI in Chile at a time when the global health emergency caused by Covid-19 was just beginning. “Today, we face an extremely complex scenario for foreign investment globally so the growth of FDI in the first two months is good news,” he said.

“At InvestChile, we have implemented a series of measures to be closer to foreign investors, not only to inform them about the government’s measures in this crisis and the potential help at their disposal, but also to help them overcome the difficulties they face, looking to the medium and long term. This crisis is unprecedented and we believe that foreign investment will play a key role in the recovery of our economy, especially because of its capacity to create jobs, which is one of the agency’s central concerns,” he added.

The most important component of FDI in January and February was equity, which reached US$3,248 million, followed by reinvested earnings (US$947 million) and related borrowing (US$584 million).

It is important to note that organizations like the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) have warned that the coronavirus pandemic will have an important impact on FDI. At the end of March, UNCTAD estimated that global FDI could contract by between 30% and 40% in 2020, a far more challenging outlook than the reduction of between 5% and 15% it forecast at the beginning of the pandemic.