NEWS
CINDE celebrates 35 years as the world’s top investment agency according to the International Trade Center
• Singled out by the International Trade Center (ITC) for its culture of innovation, high quality service in its support to investors, and excellence in internal operations.
August 25th, 2017. SAN JOSÉ – The Costa Rican Investment Promotion agency (CINDE) celebrates its 35th anniversary marking its accomplishments of bringing more than 300 multinational businesses to Costa Rica and generating 90 thousand direct jobs and 43 thousand indirect jobs. In this Celebration, CINDE’s President, Luis Gamboa, pointed out that CINDE was catalogued as the world’s # 1 institution for the attraction of Foreign Direct Investment in a recent evaluation of Investment Promotion Agencies performed by the International Trade Center (ITC) —a Geneva based subsidiary organization of the United Nations.
The ITC underlined CINDE’s capacity to adapt and to tend to the constant changes of the market and to Costa Rica’s necessities, as well as its constant search for excellence and innovation in its everyday operations.
“We can celebrate that our country counts with the best promoter of investment in the world,” Gamboa stated. “I remind you that it also counts with the best promoter of trade, given that PROCOMER has demonstrated an outstanding performance in this category. To make an analogy that appeals to Costa Rica’s love for soccer, this would be like the equivalent of winning two World Cups.”
During its 35 years of operation, CINDE has brought around 300 multinational companies in sectors such as corporate services, life sciences, advanced manufacturing, light manufacturing, and food industry. CINDE has generated 90,000 high-paying quality jobs directly, as well as 43,000 jobs indirectly, which has contributed to the country’s socioeconomic development.
CINDE’s anniversary celebration serves as a platform to shine a light on Costa Rica’s new challenges, such as the current changes in the market and emerging new technologies, their impact on the world of business, and the educational challenges that the country faces to adapt to each these new tendencies.
As President Luis Guillermo Solís Rivera noted, “In CINDE we recognize a systematic, professional, and articulate work that has given Costa Rica very positive results in the attraction of investments, which has been fundamental to continue to push forward the country’s development, job growth, and competitive edge. It has been more than three decades in which, with careful attention and delivery, CINDE has dedicated itself to empowering the country’s enormous advantages in human resources, sociopolitical, and economic conditions that place us today as world-class market.
The Minister of Foreign Trade, Alexander Mora, congratulated CINDE’s Board of Directors and it’s technical team on this occasion of celebration.
“CINDE is a strategic ally to the government and to many Costa Rican families that benefit from the thousands of direct and indirect jobs that have been created through its actions in foreign companies that have come to the country, as well as entrepreneurships and national business chains. CINDE has also cemented a successful promotion and facilitation of investments and collaborates in a determinant manner in the upkeep of a very business friendly environment in the Country. Thanks to this, Costa Rica has been able to maintain a positive influx of direct foreign investment in a Latin America that sees its foreign investment decrease year after year. I confirm our commitment to continue supporting and working with CINDE to make Costa Rica a more competitive, productive, transparent, and resilient country as the OECD.”
During its 35th anniversary celebration, CINDE’s General Director, Jorge Sequeira, explained the new challenges and opportunities that the country faces in order to continue being a world leader in the subject of attracting foreign investment.
“CINDE’s results as a key figure in the model of foreign trade and development of Costa Rica encourage us to remember that, in a time of technological transformation and disruption, our country can adapt and benefit from transforming itself into a theater of excellence for disruptive technologies. This is part of the message we want to offer as an organization. The wave of changes that we see in the world is full of opportunities of which Costa Rica can take advantage.”
In this activity, high-level representatives from four multinational companies narrated the evolution that their operations have undergone in the country as well as the opportunities for growth that they project. From Intel Corporation, CINDE counted with the participation of Vincent R. Guglielmetti, General Manager of the operation and Mega Lab of Costa Rica; from Boston Scientific, Brad Sorenson, Senior Vicepresident of Manufacturing and Supply Chain; from Procterandamp;Gamble, Mr. Richard Dravenstott, General Director of International Operations; and from McKinsey andamp; Company, Alberto Chaia, Senior Partner.
For more information
Carlos Morales
cmorales@cinde.org
