Guatemala is stagnant: we invest barely 16% of our GDP in fixed capital, while Panama and the Dominican Republic reach 32%. History gives us an even bigger clue: countries that grow rapidly surpass 23%. Singapore reached 46% in the 1980s, Ireland achieved 53% in 2019 before the pandemic, and China has averaged 42% since the 2000s. Can we at least double our figure? The TCQ fiasco in Puerto Quetzal, where bribes unlocked a project that later collapsed, proves that corruption is not the way forward. We need stability and agility to attract foreign and local investment.
Panama attracts millions with its Law 54, which provides 10 years of clear rules. Here, the Escobal mine lost years in court due to lack of certainty. Let us imagine a better Guatemalan law: 30 years of stability, aligned with the Priority Infrastructure Law, while negotiating direct benefits for communities —jobs, schools, roads— in addition to adequate fiscal revenues and value-added industries in the surrounding area that magnify the economic potential of the region. In San Juan Sacatepéquez, Cementos Progreso faced blockades despite its contributions; such a framework would prevent that. But foreigners alone are not enough: if local companies like Cementos Progreso (which invested $335 million in Costa Rica and El Salvador), Cervecería Centro Americana, or CMI reinvested more here, a fixed 15% corporate income tax would bring them back. More capital would remain at home.
The Dominican Republic provided another example with “Zero Bureaucracy”: it digitized procedures and reduced waiting times, attracting everything from hotels to factories. In Guatemala, obtaining a permit can take months or require favors under the table, as happened with TCQ, where USD 30 million in bribes did not prevent the project’s cancellation. A single digital window, with 60-day deadlines and total transparency, would change the game. If Dominicans reached 32% that way, we could too, giving local companies the speed they seek abroad.
Marvin Aguilar, a Guatemalan who arrived in Los Angeles in the 2000s, proves it. After years working in construction, he invested USD 100,000 in a house during the 2008 crisis. Today, that property is worth more than USD 300,000, and his real estate portfolio exceeds USD 500,000, generating rents that transformed his life.
Doubling investment in Guatemala is not a dream: it is an achievable goal with 30-year stability and Dominican-style agility. A law that provides certainty for three decades, negotiates local benefits, and fixes the corporate income tax at 15% for all local reinvestment, together with a system that streamlines procedures, could take us from 16% to 32%.
In the United States, legal stability and agility for investment opened doors for him; in Guatemala, cases like Escobal or TCQ close them. Marvin is not an exception: thousands in our diaspora are multiplying their wealth this way. What if we brought those conditions here?
The pattern is clear: accelerated growth and high gross fixed capital formation (investment in fixed capital goods) go hand in hand. Ireland took off with a peak reaching 53%, Singapore managed to surpass 40% in the 1980s, and China averaged 41% over the last two decades, financing its economic miracle. Twenty-three percent is the threshold where economies begin to transform. Guatemala does not need to become Singapore tomorrow, but surpassing that level would unleash a structural change. Panama and the Dominican Republic show us the path; Marvin Aguilar shows us the possibility.
And the human impact? If doubling Gross Fixed Capital Formation to 32% adds USD 18 billion annually, we could generate 600,000 direct and indirect jobs —35 for every million invested, according to regional standards—. With 250,000 formal jobs, each worker would support five people, benefiting 3 million Guatemalans, 17% of the population, almost one in every five people. This would not only reduce informality from 71% to 65% within a decade, but also cut the need to migrate to the United States, where 1.7 million seek what is lacking here: opportunities. More investment means more jobs, and more jobs mean fewer suitcases.
Doubling investment in Guatemala is not a dream: it is an achievable goal with 30-year stability and Dominican-style agility. A law that provides certainty for three decades, negotiates local benefits, and fixes the corporate income tax at 15% for all local reinvestment, together with a system that streamlines procedures, could take us from 16% to 32%. Cementos Progreso could add plants here instead of across Central America; CMI and Cervecería could expand their empire from home. Marvin achieved it from abroad; let us stop improvising and do it from within. The future will not wait.
