For only the second time in more than 20 years, Mexico is not among the 25 most attractive countries in the world for foreign investors, according to an index developed by the global consulting firm Kearney.

Mexico ranked 25th on the 2019 Foreign Direct Investment Confidence Index but fell off this year’s list.

Kearney said that the cancellation of the previous government’s Mexico City airport project and the prioritization of projects that will have limited social and economic impact, such as the new refinery on the Tabasco coast, the Santa Lucía airport and the Maya Train, were factors that contributed to Mexico’s disappearance from the 2020 index.

It said that changes to rules in the energy sector and the government’s cancelation of private projects that had been approved, such as Constellation Brands’ US $1.4-billion brewery in Mexicali, Baja California, were also factors.

Amid the coronavirus crisis, investors are showing a preference for “large, more stable markets with more predictable political and regulatory structures,” said Ricardo Haneine, a director at Kearney México. “That increases the interest in developed economies.”

For the eighth year in a row, the United States ranked first on the index followed by Canada, Germany, Japan and France. The only Latin American country among the 25 is Brazil, which ranked 22nd.

Based on a survey of global business executives who rank markets that are likely to attract the most investment in the next three years, the Foreign Direct Investment Confidence Index has been published by Kearney on an annual basis since 1998.

The only other year that Mexico didn’t appear on the index was 2011.

Source: El Economista (sp)