Essential News

San Jose, May 25, 2015: On Friday May 22 concluded the agenda organized by CINDE for the promotion of Costa Rica as a foreign investment location. The Costa Rican delegation that included President of Costa Rica, Luis Guillermo Solis; Minister of Foreign Trade, Alexander Mora; Managing Director of the Costa Rican Investment Promotion Agency (CINDE), Jorge Sequeira; Minister of Foreign Affairs, Manuel Gonzalez; and Ambassador of Costa Rica to the United States, Roman Macaya, travelled through four of the main business cities in the US: Charlotte, Atlanta, Austin and Chicago looking to attract more investment projects that will generate quality jobs in Costa Rica.

The investment promotion tour accomplished hundreds of new high quality jobs for the country, as well as alliances and potential educational cooperation with renowned universities and research centers in the United States.

The work plan included three specific areas of action: bilateral meetings and direct approaches to multinational companies, promotional events before the business community and working meetings with renowned international academic institutions. Additionally, the tour included interviews with international media and press conferences.

The Minister of Foreign Trade, Alexander Mora said that this tour is part of the high-priority efforts that the Government has been doing since the beginning of the Solis Administration. "It was an intense tour that combined areas of great importance to promote investment in the country, including an important number of one-on-one meetings with companies, platform events with investors, and a strong emphasis on rapprochement with international academia and research institutions that can contribute with their knowledge to our development in several areas. We identified multiple and very interesting opportunities that, in working closely with CINDE, we will provide close follow up in the upcoming months, in an attempt to get them to materialize and translate into more jobs, resulting in growth and development for Costa Rica" said Mora.

For his part, Managing Director of CINDE, Jorge Sequeira said that for the Promotion Agency such direct approaches to companies led by the President of the Republic, Government representatives, and CINDE as promoter, drive the decision making process of companies for both re investment projects and new projects.

"All companies visited that were included in the agenda by CINDE have the potential to develop new areas of operation in the country or to make their existing locations grow. In this context, the presence of the President and the Ministers allowed the meetings to be directly with the decision makers and higher level executives of each company. This translates into a stronger positioning of the country and increasing opportunities for companies to choose Costa Rica for their projects" he said.

Solid Results

A total of 350 new job positions announced for Costa Ricans; 23 bilateral meetings with multinational companies from the sectors of services, life sciences, advanced and light manufacturing, and textile industry; five working meetings with prestigious US academic institutions seeking alliances with Costa Rican academia; as well as four encounters with the American business community that included 450 participants, were part of the activities and the results of the foreign investment promotion tour organized by CINDE.

The agenda had seven interviews with international media including CNN, Univision, Telemundo, South Carolina TV, Global Atlanta, Wabe 90.1 fm and North Carolina TV, as well as two press conferences with Hispanic media in the United States.