Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff and her Mexican counterpart Enrique Pena Nieto signed an investment co-operation accord in late May. The accord aims at strengthening economic ties between the two countries by targeting areas such as investment facilitation, increase of air travel between Mexico and Brazil and co-operation on tourism.

“This is the beginning of a new stage… a new chapter in the friendship between our two nations,” Mr Pena Nieto is reported as saying after the accord was signed. Meanwhile Ms Rousseff pointed out that although the two countries have been working closer in the past few years, more can be done to attract outward FDI investments from Brazil to Mexico.

Advertisement

According to fDi Markets, a greenfield investment data tracker, 21 Brazilian companies launched 24 projects in Mexico between 2009 and 2014. The estimated value of Brazilian investments to Mexico over that period was $3.4bn with the highest investment being announced in November 2009 by Braskem, a São Paulo-based petrochemical company planning to invest $2.5bn in a petrochemical complex in the state of Veracruz.

Mexican companies over the same period launched 34 projects worth an estimated $2.1bn. Overall, 22 Mexican firms invested in Brazil with the biggest investor being telecommunications group Claro Brazil, a subsidiary of America Movil, owned by Carlos Slim Helu, the walthiest Mexican and one of the wealthiest people in the world. In November 2011, Claro Brazil announced that it invest $1.2bn in its network capacity, in response to spike in demand for data traffic in Mexico

Between 2009 and 2014, Mexican companies invested mostly in communications, software and IT, and beverages in Brazil. Preferred sectors for Brazilian companies coming to Mexico between 2009 and 2014 were software and IT, automotive components, and business services.

Find out more about