During 2019, Invest in Bogota (IIB), the city of Bogotá’s investment promotion agency, supported 48 greenfield Foreign Direct Investment projects, its highest number for a calendar year since its institution in 2006.
Overall, IIB supported the arrival of investment from 25 countries in 2019. Investors from the United States were the most numerous with 10 projects, Canada, the second, with four projects, and Germany, Spain, Mexico and France, with three projects each, were tied in the third place.
In addition to receiving investment from countries such as the United States, Spain or France, IIB supported projects from Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Australia, among other countries. This indicates, according to the agency that the city is developing interest from regions of the world that were not inclined to Invest in Bogota in previous years.
According to Invest in Bogota’s Executive Director, Juan Gabriel Pérez, the FDI projects “surpassed $600 million USD and generated more than 7,700 direct Jobs in 2019″. According to Pérez, these are quality jobs for local citizens and proof of the positive effects of FDI.
Bogota continues to create an infrastructure that promotes the city as an attractive destination for Information Technology (IT) companies, Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and Shared Service Centers (SCS). These sectors received the largest number of investment projects for the city in 2019. Bogota attracted 14 IT and BPO projects, which brought an estimate of 4,000 direct jobs.
Some of the IT and BPO companies that invested with the assistance of IIB in the city during 2019 were: Ixerv LAC (United Arab Emirates), Nub8 (US), Grupo ARS (Ecuador), the British software development firm Endava, and Switzerland’s Amaris Consulting, which opened a global robotic process automation center.
The second sector in which IIB supported the largest number of investment projects was life sciences, which includes industries as medical devices, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and health services, with 10 new and reinvestment projects. The city also received 10 investment projects for the value-added manufacturing sectors, 8 in creative industries and 4 in infrastructure.
Since 2006, Invest in Bogota has accompanied 384 projects which correspond to an estimate of $3 billion USD and has created over more than 45,000 direct jobs.
