Katherine Caicedo
Investment Attraction Manager
Invest Pacific
Cali, Colombia
LATAM FDI: Hello, welcome to another installation of the LATAM FDI podcast. These are conversations in which we speak to individuals throughout the region of Latin America on topics related to foreign direct investment. Today, we have Katherine Caicedo with us. She’s an Investment Attraction Manager with Invest Pacific, primarily focused on attracting foreign direct investment to Cali in Colombia and its surrounding areas. Hello, Katherine. Katherine, how are you today? Please tell us briefly about yourself and your organization and why businesses should invest in Cali.
Katherine Caicedo: Thank you very much for having me on this podcast. We’re excited to share more about what we do and our region with you. As you mentioned, my name is Katherine Caicedo. I am the Foreign Investment Attraction Manager at Imbus Pacific for the services sector. I’m passionate about economic development, bringing economic development to my country, and encouraging companies to invest in Cali. So, I worked previously in organizations such as Procolombia. Right now, I’m working at Invest Pacific. I’ve been working here for ten months. What we do is help foreign companies establish their operations in our city and in the towns that surround Cali. We offer free-of-charge services, including connections with both the public and the private sector in our region, to ensure they can start their operations as smoothly as possible. What we aim to do is to create new jobs and new opportunities for our people through companies that invest in Cali.
LATAM FDI: Some people listening may know that Colombia is in the northern part of South America, but they might not know where Cali is in relation to Colombia’s other cities. Please give us some background information on that and let us know the population of Cali and the surrounding area and why it is a good idea for companies to invest in Cali.
Katherine Caicedo: The Valle de Cauca, the state from which Cali is the capital, is located in the southwest of Colombia, on the Pacific shore of our country. It’s the third largest city in Colombia. Cali has over three million inhabitants in its Metropolitan area, and Valle del Cauca, as a region, has over 4.5 million inhabitants. It’s strategically located within Colombia because it has access to the Pacific shore, making it a critical economic region. We have the main port of Colombia in the Pacific Ocean, further enhancing our strategic importance and making it an excellent option to invest in Cali.
LATAM FDI: One thing that I’m aware of is that the US is one of Columbia’s primary commercial partners. How many American companies specifically operate in Cali, and in what types of sectors and activities?
Katherine Caicedo: Sure. One of our strategies to encourage companies to invest in Cali as a business destination is that we are very close to the US, and over 146 companies from the US have already established their operations in Cali. We have companies from the BPO, IT and software, pharmaceutical, wood, plastic, cardboard, and so on sectors within our region. What is very important for the US is that these companies have generated over 11,000 jobs in the area.
LATAM FDI: I understand that Cali’s tech industry is increasing. What makes Cali attractive for technology-based operations? Why should they invest in Cali?
Katherine Caicedo: Several factors should motivate companies to invest in Cali, not just one. As I mentioned, we’re strategically located in the southwest of Colombia, giving us the same time zone as North American and Latin American markets. This also allows companies to be closer to their clients in these countries. Also, we have a top-tier university cluster where human talent is trained in technical and university careers relevant to the sector under high-quality standards, so we are a very cost-efficient city. So, Colombia is already a very cost-efficient country compared to North America and other Latin countries. However, to invest in Cali is even more cost-efficient than other main cities in Colombia. So, living in Cali costs 9 % less than living in Bogotá or Medellín. And in terms of salaries, we can be up to 40 % more competitive wages for the tech sector compared to these other main cities in Colombia. We also have a very robust infrastructure in terms of connectivity. The city has technological parks, and it also has the second tier four data center in Colombia. And we are connected directly to the Pacific undersea cable. As a result, we have fiber optic internet.
We also recently invested in a US company called Speedcast, which installed satellite antennas for satellite Internet in Cali. So, we have a very robust infrastructure that can also support the growth of tech operations in our region.
LATAM FDI: You have a good infrastructure, but how is Cali integrating itself into the global tech ecosystem? And what role does the Center for Art, Science, and Technology, which is new, play?
Katherine Caicedo: Yes. Right now, Cali is going through a perfect moment because both our mayor’s office, our governor’s office, and the private sector are working jointly to make Cali a more competitive city in terms of technology. We have recently opened the doors of a new technological park called Yawa in Cali, which has the purpose of landing modern technology companies but also has opened the doors to everyone that lives in Cali so that everyone can interact with technology with science. In this way, our talent, from the youngest to the oldest, can experience and access world-level technologies within our city. Making our citizens more technologically adept makes it attractive for companies to invest in Cali.
This park has a planetarium and several other initiatives that merge arts, creativity, and technology.
LATAM FDI: From what I understand, you will soon attend an event in Florida. Can you tell us what that event is and why it’s significant?
Katherine Caicedo: Well, we do a lot of events, or we attend a lot of events in the United States because, as I mentioned, it’s one of our main partners in attracting companies to invest in Cali. Now, next week, we’ll be in Orlando. We will talk to the diaspora of Colombians in Orlando so they know about our city’s opportunities and improvements. Then we will also go by the end of October, we’ll be participating in the event Tech in California, and we’re also aiming to connect with tech-based companies so that we can show them all the opportunities our city has for them to expand their operations, both for serving US clients as a nearshore destination, but also for entering the LATAM market.
LATAM FDI: When you go as Invest Pacific to events like the one you just described, do you use any particular strategies to attract business to your city? Or what do you do to make Cali attractive to companies attending these events?
Katherine Caicedo: We do a previous search of what types of companies we’re in contact with, the ones that we see from our market intelligence department that have the potential and may already have the intent to come to the Latin American market. And we target particular companies. However, we also have the support of ProColumbia, which has a broader range of offices worldwide and in the United States. They have already contacted several companies interested in exploring the Colombian markets. Our strategy is simple: pitch to companies to invest in Cali to sell them all these points of what our city has and how this can positively impact their operations, mainly because it’s a more cost-efficient but high-quality place to have tech-based operations.
LATAM FDI: Well, you go to events outside of Colombia. I know that Cali will host the CoP16 World Biodiversity Summit. How’s the city preparing?
Katherine Caicedo: Well, our city has prepared a lot for this event because usually, this is an event that you prepare two years in advance. But we had this event, and let’s say we have the news that we will be hosting it just this year. So, we had a little or less time. But there is a significant effort our city is making to have this big event that will take place in the last two weeks of October. At that event, we will be hosting the Green Business Forum. This is a business event promoting investment and green business initiatives and encouraging businesses to invest in Cali. We will have over forty high-level speakers from a lot of different countries. This will occur on October 25th in the Chamber of Commerce auditorium in Cali from 07:30 AM to 04:30 PM.
LATAM FDI: Well, you’ve made a lot of good points about why companies should invest in Cali and why it’s an excellent place to invest. Are there any other details you’d like to share with us about the city that might be pertinent?
Katherine Caicedo: Our city has an excellent quality of life. It’s a city, and we’re hosting the COP6 event because we’re surrounded by biodiversity. We are a city that lives within nature, but it’s also a city where you have a lot of cultural heritage. For example, salsa is a rhythm you may know from Latin America. Cali is known as the world capital of salsa. We have several things happening all around, such as salsa dancing and salsa music. So, it’s a city that vibrates with nature, culture, and creativity and is a beautiful place to live. We have great weather throughout the entire year. It’s a city where you will always find summer and breeze, but also a very green territory with many birds and nature around.
LATAM FDI: In a brief period, we’ve reviewed much information on why businesses should invest in Cali. Our experience is that after hearing speakers share information, listeners have questions that they’d like to follow up with. We create avenues by which listeners can contact our speakers. If somebody wants to contact you with a question, how would they do that?
Katherine Caicedo: You can email me directly. My email is kcaicedo@investpacific.org.
LATAM FDI: We also often include a link to our guests’ LinkedIn profiles in the transcript section of the podcast page. You probably have a LinkedIn page.
Katherine Caicedo: Sure. I’m on LinkedIn as Katherine Caicedo Tapasco.
LATAM FDI: Okay, we’ll have a link so people can go to you directly through your LinkedIn page. Thank you for joining us today. It’s exciting to hear about Cali. It’s a place some of our listeners have heard about, and maybe some haven’t. But in any event, you’ve given us something to think about, and we thank you for participating today.
Katherine Caicedo: Thank you very much, Steven, for having us and for allowing us to share a little bit about our city, all the opportunities that we have, and how we’re becoming a home to tech.