Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean – serie

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) presents the 2025 version of its annual report Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean amid global uncertainty and high geopolitical tension, which are worsening the three development traps facing the region: low capacity for growth; high inequality and low social mobility and cohesion; and weak institutional capacities and ineffective governance. Foreign direct investment (FDI) guided by productive development policies could address these challenges. The first chapter provides an overview of global and regional FDI flows, identifies the main trends by type of investment, sector and origin, and proposes policy guidelines to enhance the impact of FDI on productive transformation. The other two chapters examine FDI trends, challenges and opportunities relating to the energy transition, specifically mining and critical minerals, and to digital transformation, which are among the driving sectors that ECLAC has recommended for prioritization in productive development policies in Latin America and the Caribbean.

In its latest edition, the Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean report analyzes in-depth the FDI received by the Caribbean, where these flows are much more significant than in the rest of the region as a proportion of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The study also examines the impact of FDI on the environment, which has not been measured or regulated sufficiently by countries in the region.

This document examines the global and regional evolution of FDI and offers recommendations so these flows can contribute to the region's productive development processes. FDI can support the investments needed for countries to move towards more inclusive and sustainable development, but, as ECLAC has argued in successive editions of this report, that does not happen automatically. Policies are needed to provide the necessary framework so that FDI entering the region is directed towards activities that support virtuous development in respect of inclusiveness, employment quality, environmental sustainability, innovation and technological sophistication. Given the growing complexity of the international landscape, it is becoming increasingly necessary to establish national and multilateral development strategies in the region and to coordinate public and private efforts so that Latin America and the Caribbean can position itself in the global economic landscape in a way that helps it to move towards inclusive and sustainable development, rather than being relegated to a marginal role determined by exogenous strategies.