Doing Business in Chile

• GDP: US$164 billion (2007).
• Main exports: Copper, fruit, fish, paper and chemicals.
• Main imports: Petroleum, chemicals, vehicles, electrical and telecommunications equipment.
• Main trade partners: USA, Argentina, Brazil, Japan and China.

Economy

With well-developed industrial and service sectors, Chile has one of Latin America's strongest economies. However, it still depends on export of primary commodities (metals and ores, fruit, fish and wood) for a large proportion of its export earnings. With commodity prices dropping recently, harsher times look likely for the Chilean economy, in line with the straitened financial times across the world.


However, Chile's industrial base has grown substantially over the last decade and includes steel manufacturing, oil production, ship building, and the production of cement and consumer goods. The mainstay of the export economy is still metals and ores: Chile is the world's leading exporter of copper and also produces zinc, iron ore, molybdenum, manganese, iodine and lithium.


The service sector has developed rapidly, especially financial services. Chile's economic performance has been strong since 2000, although annual growth had dipped slightly in 2008 to 4.1% with a further drop expected in 2009; unemployment was estimated at 7% in late 2007.

Business Etiquette

Businesspeople usually wear formal clothes in dark colours for meetings and official functions. Best months for business visits are April to December.


To keep reading this info, go to World Travel Guide.

CUECA CHILENA. Traditional dance video!

Check out more videos of Chile on Youtube.

Getting Used to Clean Air

The plane ride to Calama is a boys' club; the flight attendants strolling up and down the aisles are the only women you'll see. Calama's a mining town and, therefore, if you've got business there, chances are you're a man. It's the base-camp for the world's largest open-pit copper mine, a massive terraced crater called Chuquicamata, first worked under the Guggenheim brothers' Anaconda Copper Co.

The bus from there to San Pedro was a different deal entirely. The company running shuttles to San Pedro, 120 km east of the airport, didn't have enough passengers to make a trip economically feasible. This was lucky for me, because I took a taxi into town, ate lunch and bought a bus ticket for less money than the shuttle would have cost. No skill, pure dumb luck-especially since the cabbie gouged me out of $2 bucks. The bus, though, took two hours, just like the flight, even though it never stopped.

Now, not to dwell on my health, because I've done that recently in these entries, I went to San Pedro to get healthy, to get pure, clean, dry air. And on the bus, the window wide open and my right arm pinning back the whipping sun curtain, I breathed in that air, looking out on the white rock of the Atacama Desert, the driest in the world. At least initially, I felt better, or at least that there was hope for my sinuses.

The Atacama Desert is just like what you've seen of it in movies, like, say The Motorcycle Diaries, where the young Che walks across a dry, bright desert, flat and extensive with the sun blaring down so hard you squint through sunglasses. It's unforgiving land in the broadest sense of the term.

My bus got in shortly after 2 p.m, and it was the same one I took out 6 days later-on the surface, a newer model, but with the back bumper missing and the fan belt spinning wildly and totally exposed. My plane had left at 7 a.m., forcing me to leave for the airport at 5 (I woke up 5 minutes before the Supper Shuttle came, luckily, because the alarm didn't go off). If I felt healthier, the tradeoff was how tired I was.

Read full story at TravelPod

the best language program that I have ever used… Bueno Entonces review from FB!

Learning Spanish has been a personal goal of mine for about 10 years. I have been trying to learn Spanish since high school. I have tried everything from Rosetta Stone to generic CD’s that I listen to in my car. By far Buenos Entonces has been the best language program that I have ever used. I have learned more in 30 lessons than I did in three years of high school Spanish. I am now in the process of watching Buenos Entonces for the second time. This time I am picking up even more words. I have alot of hispanic friends and now when they talk to each other or when they talk to their family I am starting to understand.



Learn more about Spanish lessons on facebook.com/buenoentonces

Make sure you visit these places while in Chile. These are from Flickr

More pics of Chile, go to Flickr.

You'll need to learn the Language in order to work. Check Escuela Fronteras out!!!

About the classes

• Max 6 students

• Curriculum created by teachers with a degree on Linguistics from Univesidad Católica de Chile and a diploma of Teaching Spanish as a Foreign Language.
• Standard Spanish classes, beginner to advanced. 7 levels
• Private customized courses (Latin American Literature, Chilean poetry, Business Spanish, Medical Spanish, Latin American Culture, Latin American Music, Arts, etc.)
• Group + Private (30 hours per week)
• All class materials included
• Authentic course books (not photocopies)
  
• Help sessions

Your course schedule follow either the morning or evening schedule and will look like the following:

Schedule	Classes Monday - Friday
09:00	First period of class
10:30	First break
10:45	Second period of class
12:00	Second break
12:15	Third period of class
13:00	Lunch
14:00	First period of class
15:30	First break
15:45	Second period of class
17:00	Second break
17:15	Third period of class

Basic level students:

Although students can start any Monday all year long, we recommend lower level students start at the beginning of the three week program.

2009
1-Jun, 22-Jun, 13-Jul, 3-Aug, 24-Aug, 14-Sep, 5-Oct, 26-Oct, 16-Nov, 7-Dec, 28-Dec

2010
18-Jan, 8-Feb, 1-Mar, 22-Mar, 12-Apr, 3-May, 24-May, 14-Jun, 5-Jul, 26-Jul, 16-Aug, 6-Sep, 27-Sep, 18-Oct, 8-Nov, 29-Nov, 20-Dec

Flexibility

• Evening and Saturday classes. If you are studying, working, volunteering or doing an internship and cannot attend 4 hours of class per day we offer evening and Saturday private classes. We are open until 9 pm during the week and from 9 am to 1 pm on Saturdays so you can make the best out of your experience in Latin America.
• Out of school study. We know that sometimes you do not have the time you would like to study Spanish. Therefore we have teachers available to visit you in your home, hotel or office and bring the class to wherever you are.

Learn more about this school at Escuela Fronteras.

Healthcare in Chile and the USA

In Chile, you have nearly Universal healthcare including a thriving private sector-ISAPRE-and FONASA-the public plan. Chileans pay 7% of their income and then make a choice to enter the FONASA or ISAPRE system-and have further choice to elect greater coverage in private plans.

I'm not saying Chile has the best system in the world but it does seem odd and a bit sad that I am less likely to die here because of a needed operation. A friend of mine recently had an operation, a much needed femoral bypass. It cost about $12,000 usd cash, no insurance-that includes everything and a 5 star room to boot.. The average "list price" in the US is $50,900 according to this website. Apparently it can be done as cheaply as $18,900(huh?). Perhaps that's a good place to check before your next operation in the USA folks.

What I know is that the US is falling in status from a number of lists.

The World Health Organization's ranking
of the world's health systems (Top 50)
In 2000, The US was still barely ahead of...Cuba. Chile beat the US by 4 places (and has improved its system under Bachelet while the US has deteriorated. The US also beat Slovenia by one place. The U.S. spends 16 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on health care, compared with 8 to 10 percent in most major industrialized nations. According to the World Factbook
(which is suspiciously updated only to 2005) The US was #2 in healthcare spending by GDP so i would guess it's now easily in 1st place(yay!!!)

Read full article at usexpatinchile.blogspot.com