HUGE Business & Investment Council (ThinkHUGE)

The HUGE Business and Investment Council is a nonprofit business association 501(c)(6), established in Washington, D.C. by private sector leaders from Honduras, USA, Guatemala, and El Salvador (HUGE). It represents the first private sector-led regional effort to achieve massive job creation through key regional infrastructure and nearshoring investments. The industry leading entrepreneurs who developed the concept of HUGE understand that the availability of good jobs and social services is necessary for broad access to the “American Dream” in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, thereby diminishing the need for their populations to seek it in the United States. They recognize that the private sector can and should generate these types of opportunities on a larger scale because they are already doing so in their own private businesses and are committed to leading by example in engaging other investors to join the effort. We believe that HUGE is a practical response to the US’ need to shift supply chains away from China. The COVID-19 pandemic showed the logistical vulnerabilities of China as a primary purveyor of many products. Human rights, environmental concerns and the aging Chinese labor force diminish its potential to be the major US supplier as global demand increases. Trade tensions between the two countries represent an opportunity to attract American companies currently based in China, to a more sustainable, friendly, and geographically closer region with a trainable young adult workforce. The goal of HUGE is to facilitate $10 billion worth of investments, creating 500,000 new direct jobs and 1.5 million indirect jobs in the four HUGE countries in five years. HUGE aims to become a counterpart to US initiatives in the region that unite the private sector of the four member countries and enable a favorable environment for strategic investments that will ultimately create new well-paid jobs.