The CEO Project is playing an active role in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) into Guatemala as a duty-free (Dominican Republic and Central American Free Trade Agreement DR-CAFTA) and nearshoring destination for the textile and apparel industry. This assistance is to promote market-based economic systems, an open investment environment, and transparency to create stronger trading partners for the United States in Guatemala.
The apparel and textile sector is the major exporting sector in Guatemala (14% of total exports), constituting 8.9% of the Gross Domestic Product. It generates 180,000 direct and indirect jobs, 45% of which are performed by women. This sector shows immense potential to attract new investments that can complement and contribute to further developing this industry in the country, taking advantage of the “nearshoring” trend due to its proximity to the largest apparel import market in the world, the United States.
The CEO Project becomes a strategic ally to major US brands and textile/apparel manufacturing firms’ FDI opportunities to initiate or relocate to Guatemala and explore costing schemes to produce competitively through special tax incentives regimes and skilled labor, increasing verticality in the Western Hemisphere and thus speed to market (2 days ocean transit time to the US) with traceable cotton and/or synthetic yarns to supply apparel to the US retail industry.
