MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Foreign investment in Chile triples with 55 new projects

Chile has proved once again to be a foreign investment magnet as overseas companies have announced over 6.62 billion US dollars in projects so far this year, Chile's Economy Ministry reported.

Authorized foreign investments between January and August in 2008 tripled from last year's 1.96 billion US dollars as Chile's Committee of Foreign Investments (CIE) gave the nod for 55 new investment projects to start up. Of those projects, new initiatives would guarantee 4.83 billion in foreign investments, and the rest of the projects would boost existing investments by 1.78 billion US dollars. This year's explosive results, which have already surpassed the totals from all of last year, "confirm the enormous interest our country sparks among foreign investors, who consider Chile an attractive locale for their productive investments," said Economics Minister and CIE head Hugo Lavados. The boost in project proposals made this year the third best in 11 years, just under the historic peaks of 1999 and 2001. At this pace, the year's total realized foreign investments could round up to well over 2 billion US dollars, the ministry says. Chile's strong mining, services and gas, water and electricity sectors proved most attractive for investors mostly from Canada, the United States and Europe. Various multinational big businesses like U.S. financiers Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley and Portuguese winemaker SOGRAPE have moved in to buy out Chilean operations, bringing with them 1.4 billion US dollars in the first five months of 2008 alone. Merrill Lynch Chile teamed up with New York-based risk analyzer Moody's this year to buy out Chilean risk classifying firm Humphrey's Limited as part of its efforts to expand business in Latin America. In June, the financier also announced it was buying 82-year-old Ureta y Bianchi, Chile's oldest equity firm, for an undisclosed amount. After SOGRAPE bought Chilean vineyards Chateau Los Boldos and Santa Amalia in February, the company announced it planned to triple production in the next five years. "2008 will be among the best years in terms of foreign investment" Minister Lavados said. "Investment, both authorized and delivered, will reach very high numbers, and different productive sectors of our country will be beneficiaries". The Santiago Times