Georgia Tech to open logistics and supply chain facility in Costa Rica

Two and half years ago, Don Ratliff, executive director of the Supply Chain and Logistics Institute at the Georgia Institute of Technology, came to San José to speak at a logistics trade show organized by the Costa Rican Foreign Trade Promotion Office (PROCOMER).

During his visit, Ratliff and members of PROCOMER and the Costa Rican Chamber of Industries discussed the idea of bringing a supply chain management and logistics center to Costa Rica.

“We had a number of conversations with people in Costa Rica about how a logistics center could impact trade,” Ratliff said. “We began talking about developing a project here that could potentially be a hub for all of Latin America.”

On Aug. 20, the idea born that weekend will become reality, when the Georgia Tech Trade-Chain Innovation and Productivity Center opens in San José. The center, located in a building shared by PROCOMER and the Chamber of Industries, aims to improve efficiency of foreign trade. The goal of the center will be to research the areas in which trade is slowed and attempt to ameliorate those flaws to improve the process of trading commodities between the United States and Costa Rica.

“Studies show there are trade inefficiencies in Latin American and Costa Rican trade with the U.S.,” Ratliff said.

See the July 3 print or PDF edition of The Tico Times for more on this story.