Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2024

Latin America and the Caribbean is caught in three development traps: weak capacity for growth; high inequality and low levels of social mobility; and limited institutional capacities, along with ineffective governance. Incorporating foreign direct investment (FDI) into productive development policies could help to address these challenges. ECLAC presents the 2024 edition of the annual report Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean against this backdrop.

As is the case every year, the first chapter provides an overview of global and regional FDI and identifies the main trends according to type of investment, sector and origin. The other two chapters analyse the link between FDI and productive development policies: the second chapter examines policies to attract FDI and proposes 17 guidelines for ensuring that these investments play a greater role in productive development processes, while the third chapter discusses subnational FDI in five countries of the region, identifies project announcement trends and determinants, and makes recommendations for the use of FDI to close gaps between territories and maximize positive effects to bring about productive transformation.