Investment

Any foreign individual or legal entity, as well as Chileans with residence abroad, can invest through D.L. 600. Under this mechanism, investors enter into a legally binding contract with the Chilean State, which cannot be modified unilaterally by the State or by subsequent changes in the law. However, investors may, at any time, request the amendment of the contract to increase the amount of the investment, change its purpose or assign its rights to another foreign investor.

D.L. 600 guarantees investors the right to repatriate capital one year after its entry and to remit profits at any time. In practice, the one-year capital lock-in has not represented a restraint since most productive projects --in areas such as mining, forestry, fishing and infrastructure-- require more than a one-year start-up period. Once all relevant taxes have been paid, investors are assured access to freely convertible foreign currency without any limits on the amount, for both capital and profit remittances. In addition, they are guaranteed the right of access to the formal exchange market. The repatriation of all capital invested is devoid of any tax, duty or charge up to the amount of the originally materialized investment. Only capital gains over that amount are subject to the general regulations contained in the tax code.

It should be noted that the Central Bank has the right to restrict access to the formal exchange market --made up by banks and other authorized dealers-- if adverse macroeconomic conditions make this necessary. However, D.L. 600 investors are exempt from these restrictions and their right to access the market in order to repatriate profits or capital is not affected.

The D.L. 600 contract acknowledges as foreign investment:

Freely convertible currency that can be exchanged at the most favorable rate that foreign investors can obtain from an entity authorized to operate in the Formal Exchange Market.