Mexico City – At his Tuesday morning press conference, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador celebrated the “historic” foreign direct investment (FDI) of more than 27.5 million dollars that the country received in the first half of 2022, an increase of 49.2 percent compared to the same period in 2021.
The president stressed that this is historical data: “Since the record of foreign investment has been kept in recent times, so much foreign investment has never been received as in this first half of the year,” he said at his morning press conference from the National Palace.
When presenting the data, he explained that this year, the sale of Televisa and Univision shares and from the sale of Aeromexico shares improved the country’s FDI.
Without considering these atypical operations, direct foreign investment increased 12 percent against the first semester of last year. “If these two operations were removed, foreign direct investment in 2022 would have been 23 million dollars in the first half of the year alone,” the president said.
He pointed out that the numbers show confidence in Mexico, and that undoubtedly represents more jobs and the overall well-being of the people.
“Foreign investment comes when there is rule of law, governability, stability [in a country], and for geopolitical reasons, we do not want war anywhere, but the Russia-Ukraine conflict and tensions in Asia and Taiwan all make Mexico an attractive country for investment,” he said.
According to preliminary data from the Ministry of Economy, the FDI reported by country of origin is distributed as follows: United States, 39.9%; Canada 10.3%; Spain, 6.8%; Argentina, 5.9%; UK, 3.3%, Germany, 2.6%; and other countries contributed the remaining 31.2%.