FDI in LatAm grows 6 pct in first half of year

Foreign direct investment (FDI) in Latin America grew 6 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2013, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) said Thursday.Out of the 102.carbon cloth95 billion U.S. dollars in FDI received by 13 countries there, Brazil received 39.014 billion dollars between January and August, becoming the main recipient.This, however, was a 10 percent year-on-year decrease due to worse performance in such sectors as iron and steel, food and beverages,vacuum bottle and financial services, which in 2012 registered significant business acquisitions.The purchase of Mexico's homegrown Modelo brewery by Belgian firm Anheuser-Busch InBev singlehandedly pushed its foreign investment in the first half of 2013 past the total FDI in 2012.However, even without that deal, FDI in Mexico still totaled 13.249 billion dollars, 15 percent higher than the year-earlier period. 

FDI flows also grew in Venezuela (44 percent), Peru (27 percent), El Salvador (27 percent), Panama (19 percent), Costa Rica (15 percent), Uruguay (8 percent) and Colombia (5 percent).In Chile, in the first seven months of the year, FDI fell 26 percent year-on-year due to operations in April.FDI flows also fell in Guatemala, Argentina and the Dominican Republic, where the acquisition of the Dominican National Brewery by Anheuser-Busch InBev significantly boosted their figures for 2012. That deal was valued at 1.tyre changer237 billion dollars.Outbound FDI, which reached record highs in the three previous years,carbon prepreg remained highly volatile. ECLAC reported 10 countries in the region that presented data accounted for 6.385 billion dollars, much lower than 24.446 billion dollars for the same period in 2012.Transnational Latin American enterprises continued to expand, with foreign investment in the second half of the year expected to surpass that in the first half, mainly thanks to several major cross-border acquisition deals that have already been modern lightingcompleted.Preliminary data for 2013 showed FDI of Latin America would keep growing. ECLAC advised governments to take advantage of this to channel investments towards sectors that can change the region's production patterns.