Foreign investment in Latin America grows

Foreign investment in Latin America grew during the first half of the year, with Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela showing some of the strongest gains.

Argentina on the other hand saw investment fall 30 percent, reports La Nacion.

Brazil was the biggest winner, attracting more than half of the overall investment in the continent. Brazil's Central Bank said investment in the country in the first nine months of the year totaled $50.5 billion, the highest amount since it started to measure investment in 1947.

Foreign direct investment in Colombia grew 91 percent and the country saw more investment in the first half of this year than in all of 2010. Venezuela managed to reverse last year's negative cash flow, according to figures from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.

El Salvador posted the highest relative jump (1,404 percent) but the overall amount of investment in the country is still small.

The top five countries in terms of investment were 1) Brazil 2) Mexico 3) Colombia 4) Chile and 5) Peru.

Check out this earlier graphic from Americas Quarterly on foreign investment in 2010.

Source: Americas Quarterly

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