Trade & Sustainability

The long-lasting partnership between Chile and the Netherlands has created jobs, sound investments, and promising opportunities for the people of both nations.

Chile and the Netherlands have a long-standing bilateral relationship. Although the commerce between the two countries still has a good growth potential, the Netherlands is a large investor in Chile. The Netherlands (and its private sector) is also recognized in Chile for its innovative capabilities, its focus on sustainability and its cooperative approach, through including government and knowledge institutions in the achievement of business solutions.

The EU and Chile concluded an Association Agreement in 2002, which includes a comprehensive Free Trade Agreement that entered into force in 2003 covering EU-Chile trade relations. A modernization of the Association Agreement, including the trade part, is currently being negotiated. The EU is Chile’s third-largest trade partner.

The growing economic ties between the Netherlands and Chile support many jobs, a result of exports from Chile to the Netherlands and investments made by Dutch companies in Chile.

Trade

With exports from Chile to the Netherlands of 1.6 billion US$ in 2018, of which mainly fruits, vegetables and wine (Netherlands are the main destiny for Chile´s exports) and imports of 460 million US$, consisting of a plethora of products, there is an enormous potential for commerce between our two countries. Both countries rely on their open economy and score high on the ease-of-doing-business ranking. Chile has a powerhouse retail landscape, that dominates the Latin American retail, is set on improving its innovative capacity and has a strong drive towards sustainability, not in the last place because of its ongoing draughts.

The Netherlands is the 4^th largest capital investor in Chile for the past 5 years, indicating what level of trust there is in this economically and politically stable society, even though they went through a rough patch at the end of 2019 and have managed so far to curb the effects of the pandemic with a very large loan (no questions asked) from the IMF.

Chile has a very professional investment agency: InvestChile, with which we are very well connected. As well as a very active export agency: ProChile.

The Dutch business community in Chile is thriving and is increasingly connected through the recently established Holland House Chile, as is the Dutch community in general.

Dutch companies in Chile are many, and in all fields of industry. From Heineken to KLM, from (Uni)Lever to DSM, but also AkzoNobel, Philips, Signify, Arcadis, Fugro, Rabobank, Steinweg, Nijhuis, Van Oordt, etc. Many of these companies show up in many rankings on innovation and/or sustainability.

Innovation

The Dutch have been innovators and inventors for more than 800 years, going back to the nation’s first attempts to create farmland out of marshes using windmills to drain the water.

Since that time, the Netherlands has contributed many revolutionizing inventions, scientific discoveries, works of art, and engineering feats. The Dutch startup culture and can-do mentality makes it the perfect incubator for innovative solutions. A few examples include the submarine, the compact disc, EKG, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, the stormproof umbrella, and much more.