2nd Regional Meeting for South America
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The 2nd WAIPA Regional Meeting of South American IPAs took place in Medellin, Colombia, following the 1st WAIPA Regional Meeting of South America of August 28, 2008. This event was held on March 25th and 26th prior to another great summit the city then held: the 50th General Assembly of the Inter American Development Bank (IBD). The event was organized by Agencia de Cooperacion y Inversiones de Medellin y Area Metropolitana (ACI) and under the responsibility of WAIPA Regional Director for South America, ProsperAr, presided by Dr. Beatriz Nofal. The event took place at the convention facilities of the Medellin Botanical Gardens and gathered 18 IPAs from South America and one representative from the Caribbean, the Cayman Islands Investment Bureau. This 2nd WAIPA Regional Meeting of South America was the ideal space to achieve a promotion strategy for South America as a foreign direct investment destination. WAIPA President Alessandro Teixeira was present for the final session of the debate of the document Why South America, a joint effort of ProsperAr, Argentina, ApexBrasil and Pro-Export of Colombia. On Wednesday March 25 the Medellin Municipality shared their experience in terms of image building and social policies that have helped put Medellin back into the investment map. ACI as one WAIPA sub-national members from Colombia represents nowadays a valuable and replicable model for its Latin American sub-national IPA peers. By sharing its experience ACI contributed to WAIPA’s objective of “knowledge sharing” and “exchange of best practices”. On Thursday March 26 a specialized work day was conducted by Henry Loewendahl of FDI Intelligence. The greatest objective this event achieved, however, was to establish a strategy that one hopes should allowed the increase flow of investments to the whole South American region and the preparation, consolidation of a promotional document never before attempted. Dr. Beatriz Nofal, WAIPA Regional Director for South America is to be credited for revealing the strengths and attractiveness of the region as a whole and the systematic gathering of relevant information contained in the soon to be published Why South America guide.