Fruitful Investments in Chile’s VI Region in Chile's VI Region

TradeChile and the Chilean stateowned Economical Development Agency, CORFO, have recently started working to promote the O’Higgins Region, the leader in fruit & vegetable production. This is in line with CORFO’s national program TodoChile, a promotional program to attract foreign investments, taking into consideration the great differences in resources and climate that the regions in Chile face. The overall goal of the program is to improve the international competitiveness both on a regional and national level.

Rancagua, the capital of the O’Higgins region, is located 96 km south of Santiago and the region covers 2.2% of the total national surface. However, farmland in the region represents 26% of the total Chilean farmland and O’Higgins is considered the leading region in fruit exports.

The regional Mediterranean climate favors a wide variety of horticultural commodities, as well as processed fruits and vegetables.

The farmland hosts 29 agricultural industries: 18 fruit & vegetable dehydration companies, 3 canning entities, 3 frozen fruits and vegetables packing companies and 5 juice producers.

The dried fruit companies mostly process peaches, plums, green apples, tomatoes, celery and garlic. Juice is manufactured from grapes, oranges, apples, quince, blackberries, and carrots, among others. Canned fruit producers process tomatoes, peaches, apricots, apples, and pears. Finally, frozen production handles the majority of fruits and vegetables available in the O'Higgins region. 

CORFO O’Higgins has identified California, USA, as the target market for this promotion. As California is one of the worlds greatest agricultural economies, and because the two regions complement each other with growing similar types of products in a similar climate but in different parts of the year, there are a lot of business potential for both regions. The program will facilitate business trips and meetings between the agricultural counterparts and for more information about the different projects available in the O’Higgins region, or on the program itself, please visit www.corfo.cl,   www.todochileinversiones.cl/ohiggins, or contact Lina Gustafsson, Responsable Market Analyst at TradeChile at lgustafsson@tradechile.cl phone: +56 2 244 24 35.