The Government has informed that over the course of 2021 a total of 738 applications from companies for foreign investment were authorized in Andorra. A number which represents an increase of 128% when compared to the 324 foreign investment companies authorized in 2020 and an increase of around 138% compared to the 310 in 2019.
The task of the Department for Juridical and Economic Registries of the Ministry for Presidency, Economy and Enterprise allows for the carrying out of the analysis of the total volume of foreign investment, as well as subsequent following up. A fact which is reaffirmed in the amendment draft for the modifications in the Law of Foreign Investment, presented by the Minister, Jordi Gallardo, on Wednesday to the Parliament´s Legislative Commission for Economy.
The aim of the text, among other things, is to speed up the process linked to these types of investments, as well as reinforce the follow-up work by implanting a system of control for authorized foreign investment. Therefore, an agile mechanism is introduced in order to obtain, for instance, information on possible changes in holders of companies that could potentially modify qualifications from a foreign investment company to a national one. In this way there would be automatic control on the fluctuations of ownership in business projects.
In addition, the draft also wants to align the model of foreign authorization with the practices developed in Europe, and thus strengthen Andorran harmonization with international standards. In this sense, the dividing of the process into two models stands out. The first, under a regime of liberalization, will be able to be materialized without prior administrative authorization in different instances such as when the investors are residents or citizens of a country which has a CDI with Andorra and is not considered to be high risk in BC/FT by the UIFAND. The second model maintains the same procedures that currently affect all foreign investment companies. The prior and subsequent follow-up procedures will be carried out in both cases in the same way.
A number of modifications looking to improve all procedures related to foreign investment companies are included. The importance of this type of companies must be pointed out in the global number of authorized companies in Andorra: in 2021 a total of 1308 companies were authorized, 738 of which were foreign investment ones (56% of the total) and in 2020 a total of 641 were authorized, 324 of which were foreign investment companies (50% of the total).
Text and photo: Govern d’Andorra
