Skip to main content
Available in EnglishEspañolPortuguês

Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean 2018

Publication cover

Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean 2018

Autor institucional: NU. CEPAL. División de Desarrollo Productivo y Empresarial Physical Description: 204 páginas. Editorial: ECLAC Date: September 2018 ECLAC symbol: LC/PUB.2018/13-P ISBN: 9789211219937

Description

This publication sets out and analyses the main foreign direct investment (FDI) trends in the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.
In 2017, certain trends that had already emerged in the global economic landscape became more established. In particular, announcements of potential restrictions on trade and pressures to relocate production to developed countries were confirmed. At the same time, China has taken steps to restrict outflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) in order to align these flows with its strategic plan. Adding to these factors is the expansion of digital technologies, whose international expansion requires smaller investments in tangible assets. Firms in these areas are heavily concentrated in the United States and China, which reduces the need for cross-border mergers and acquisitions.
The combination of these factors goes some way to explaining the drop in global FDI in 2017, even amid stronger global economic growth (3.2%), abundant international liquidity, high corporate returns and optimism in the financial markets. In this international context, FDI flows to Latin America and the Caribbean contracted for the fourth year in a row in 2017, to US$ 161.673 billion, 3.6% down on the 2016 figure and 20% less than in 2011.

Table of contents

Executive summary .-- Chapter I. Foreign direct investment in Latin America and the Caribbean .-- Chapter II. Foreign direct investment dominates Mexico’s advanced manufacturing sectors .-- Chapter III. Global pressures and the search for efficiency: export platforms in Central America and the Dominican Republic .-- Chapter IV. The European Union, the main source of quality investment for Latin America and the Caribbean .-- Tables.

Download other documents