Costa Rica strives to enhance its competitiveness by creating new incentives to promote foreign direct investment throughout the country.
Therefore, President Rodrigo Chaves Robles signed nine decrees to regulate Law No. 10,234, on “Strengthening territorial competitiveness to promote the attraction of investments outside the Greater Metropolitan Area (GMA).”
Eleven new incentives were created to increase territorial competitiveness, speed up paperwork, and open the development of agroindustry, food, manufacturing, and tourism industries.
“Law 10234 results from years of coordinated efforts to eliminate gaps between regions within and outside the GMA. It will bring job opportunities to areas where they are much needed. With these regulations, Costa Rica has more instruments, so investors who wish to grow their operations in any of these places can,” said CINDE Managing Director Jorge Sequeira.
Indiana Trejos, Minister a.i. of Foreign Trade, emphasized that the Government prioritized this work, as it’s aware of the urgent need to settle the historical debt with the regions outside the GAM.
Three decrees were also signed reforming the rules for the one-stop investment window, simplifying investment throughout the country so that companies have a single place to process related paperwork.
“At CINDE, we have been working for several years on strategic projects with 20 cantons outside the GMA in the country’s six regions to create investment committees. We are confident that the results obtained during this period will now be potentiated,” added Sequeira.
In addition, President Chaves pointed out that together with trade, investment is a potent force for improving people’s quality of life and transforming it.
“We want this system to be multiplied throughout the country so families living in these areas can enjoy all these advantages. That is what these decrees are for, to motivate companies to invest and create these spaces for growth outside the GAM”, he affirmed.
According to CINDE, the Free Trade Zone regime has been “a successful model for driving development through job creation, production recovery, and production linkages,” as for “each $1 in tax incentives, for example, the country receives $2.43 in return.”
“We estimate that to date, the multinational companies attracted by CINDE are creating more than 5,300 jobs outside the GMA, with ten new company investments in 2022 in all sectors – life sciences, services, manufacturing, and tourism infrastructure,” Sequiera concluded.
