A total of 22 foreign investment projects were reported by the ACI Medellín in 2021, which represented more than 20 million dollars, and around 3.700 new Jobs will be generated thanks to the territory’s foreign investment management.
Since 2008, the ACI Medellín managed a total of $8.2 billion pesos in raising cooperation resources and attracting investment resources, improving the quality of life of citizens with the creation of new jobs and an economic benefit that It is reflected in different economic sectors.
The figure reported by the ACI Medellín is part of a set of actions to attract investment and cooperation management that have been key for economic reactivation.
For Eleonora Betancur, executive director of the ACI Medellín, “2021 became a year set on recovering hope and seeing the economic reactivation that our city had thanks to the union of all of society’s actors. The investment and cooperation were fundamental allies for creating new job opportunities and to dynamize the economy, injecting capital and guaranteeing that all our citizens can continue bettering their quality of life after so many months of isolation and economic recession due to the pandemic”.
“Medellin and its international allies”, was an event of hope for the whole city, as it took place in person, gathering more than 300 international guests and more than 1.300 visitors to the city. 53 projects from 28 secretariats and entities of the public conglomerate were presented in a project fair that brought together ambassadors, binational chambers, investment funds and mayors from different cities around the country and the world, to side along the entities of our public conglomerate to initiate relations that’ll allow the attraction of cooperation and investment Medellín.
The “Conexión sin Fronteras” program (Connection without Borders) became a successful medium to attract paisas and Colombians that live abroad to contribute with their knowledge, to citizens, businesses, and entities in Medellin. 60 talents connected from more than 15 counties to develop chats about technology, creative industries, bilingualism, exportations, migratory processes, urbanism and informatic security, among others, allowing many people to benefit from this knowledge for free and close to their needs.
This management done by the entity through international relations has a direct impact on the city’s development and can be seen in the Return on Investment (ROI) indicator, which indicated that, for each peso that enters the ACI Medellín budget, $16 pesos are managed in cooperation and $420 pesos in investment, in addition to the results that are not accounted for in financial resources, but rather in job creation, for example.
The management that the agency performs for the coming of new cooperation and investment projects to the city starts from the identification of countries, businesses, public or private entities, international networks, among others, that are interested in working with Medellín or, in the case of investors, installing their businesses in the territory.
Once the investment or cooperation project is installed, the resources are used to build the necessary infrastructure for its operation, the hiring of personnel and the arrival of people from other countries who will come to live alone or with their families, which stimulates tourism, housing, education, transportation, food, among other sectors.