CHILE UPDATES #17
Chile’s Going Mainstream
Chile’s Going Mainstream
Not so long ago, when Chile was really only popular with the outside world for Patagonia and its quality wines, tourism operators would refer to the country as the “end of the world” to highlight the distance from the Northern Hemisphere and try to make it sound more exotic.
These days, with Chile starting to gain more mainstream popularity, it seems the country is not quite as far from the rest of the world as it used to be, at least psychologically speaking.
In just a couple weeks from now, House Hunters International is going to be filming in country for the second time, PayPal has just partnered with a local payment service provider to make online transactions in the country easier, and in 2014, Facebook is opening up an office in Santiago.
For those of us who have been in Chile for a while already, none of this is surprising. Between the rapidly expanding economy, the ample business opportunities, the Mediterranean climate, the spectacular scenery, and the wide open spaces outside of the capital, we’ve actually been wondering why this didn’t happen sooner.
The political situation in the rest of the world doesn’t hurt Chile’s rise to fame either. While so many other countries spend themselves into insolvency, guaranteeing a lower standard of living for those living within their borders, Chile’s solid balance sheet is starting to attract more and more foreign professionals and entrepreneurs, creating a reinforcing cycle of growth and sustainable development.
Relatively low inflation, an unemployment rate of 5.7%, and an increasingly multilingual population mean life is getting better not just for Chileans, but also for foreigners who are willing to relocate themselves and become part of the local economy.
Just a few days ago during a consulting session, one of my clients who’s planning a move to Chile early next year mentioned how much he was looking forward to getting a fresh start down here but then said he assumed that after a few months, the excitement would probably wear off and things would go back to normally. I told him while that might be true in some ways, there would be other improvements in the quality of life down here that never get old, especially considering he'd be;
-coming from the colder climate of the northeastern USA to the warmer and more temperate climate of central Chile (similar to central California),
-leaving a country with a 100% debt to GDP ratio for a country with about a 0% debt to GDP ratio, and
-walking away from a place where the economy is in serious decline and arriving somewhere that is obviously on the uptrend.
That’s what’s so funny about Chile. It’s not as if people may or may not like the country due to a number of personal preferences. There’s unbiased, irrefutable evidence that humans are better suited to live in places where conditions are very similar to those which exist in Chile right now.
Plentiful employment opportunities, short winters, long summers, high level of personal freedom, abundant agricultural production, etc, etc, etc. There's no question of "if" Chile is going to see more people arriving on their shores (or at Santiago's SCL airport), it's really just a matter of "when". Or more importantly, whether you’re going to be one of the people who partakes in what's going on down here or someone who misses out.
Until soon,
Darren Kaiser
These days, with Chile starting to gain more mainstream popularity, it seems the country is not quite as far from the rest of the world as it used to be, at least psychologically speaking.
In just a couple weeks from now, House Hunters International is going to be filming in country for the second time, PayPal has just partnered with a local payment service provider to make online transactions in the country easier, and in 2014, Facebook is opening up an office in Santiago.
For those of us who have been in Chile for a while already, none of this is surprising. Between the rapidly expanding economy, the ample business opportunities, the Mediterranean climate, the spectacular scenery, and the wide open spaces outside of the capital, we’ve actually been wondering why this didn’t happen sooner.
The political situation in the rest of the world doesn’t hurt Chile’s rise to fame either. While so many other countries spend themselves into insolvency, guaranteeing a lower standard of living for those living within their borders, Chile’s solid balance sheet is starting to attract more and more foreign professionals and entrepreneurs, creating a reinforcing cycle of growth and sustainable development.
Relatively low inflation, an unemployment rate of 5.7%, and an increasingly multilingual population mean life is getting better not just for Chileans, but also for foreigners who are willing to relocate themselves and become part of the local economy.
Just a few days ago during a consulting session, one of my clients who’s planning a move to Chile early next year mentioned how much he was looking forward to getting a fresh start down here but then said he assumed that after a few months, the excitement would probably wear off and things would go back to normally. I told him while that might be true in some ways, there would be other improvements in the quality of life down here that never get old, especially considering he'd be;
-coming from the colder climate of the northeastern USA to the warmer and more temperate climate of central Chile (similar to central California),
-leaving a country with a 100% debt to GDP ratio for a country with about a 0% debt to GDP ratio, and
-walking away from a place where the economy is in serious decline and arriving somewhere that is obviously on the uptrend.
That’s what’s so funny about Chile. It’s not as if people may or may not like the country due to a number of personal preferences. There’s unbiased, irrefutable evidence that humans are better suited to live in places where conditions are very similar to those which exist in Chile right now.
Plentiful employment opportunities, short winters, long summers, high level of personal freedom, abundant agricultural production, etc, etc, etc. There's no question of "if" Chile is going to see more people arriving on their shores (or at Santiago's SCL airport), it's really just a matter of "when". Or more importantly, whether you’re going to be one of the people who partakes in what's going on down here or someone who misses out.
Until soon,
Darren Kaiser