San Jose, Costa Rica, February 9, 2023. The Costa Rica Investment Promotion Agency (
CINDE) and the Ministry of Foreign Trade (COMEX) announced in a press conference that Costa Rica was able to add 101 direct foreign investment projects during 2022 that generated 22,000 net jobs. Eleven new investments coming from seven non-traditional geographic locations such as Canada, Chile, and Germany were pointed out.
As explained by the Managing Director of CINDE, Jorge Sequeira, this translates into 40 new investment projects (a record figure that is double what was reached in 2017 and 2018) and 61 multinational companies that continued to trust and reinvest in the country.
According to the data that were shown, diversification also continues for the origin of the investment made, as well as the decision of several companies to install in
areas outside the Central Valley, which expands the benefits for more Costa Rican citizens.
The President of the CINDE Board of Directors, Eric Scharf, indicated that
“the results for 2022 reaffirmed the good positioning that Costa Rica has harvested as the headquarters for attracting FDI, positively impacting the country’s economy and development. The figures show that the jobs generated by the 40 new firms that were attracted and the 61 companies in growth have an impact on key populations that the country must deal with comprehensively to be able to generate more opportunities for everybody.”Services sector leads attraction of new investments in 2022 The
services sector was consolidated as the greatest number of projects attracted in 2022. In total, it came to 23 new projects including two of them located in the province of Guanacaste.
The
life sciences sector booked five new companies, while seven new operations were set up in the
manufacturing sector (three of them located in Orotina, Perez Zeledón, and San Carlos).
Finally, the year 2022 closed with five new projects related to
tourism infrastructure.
A close-up look at job generation Up to 50% of all of the net positions generated in 2022 are occupied by women. This share information exceeds the national average, which is around 41%, which evidences the leadership of multinationals in the search for gender equity.
In relation to age distribution, it is estimated that 47% of the net job opportunities were occupied by people from 17 to 29 years old and 35% were occupied by people older than 40. Both populations have been indicated as requiring more employability opportunities in the country.
CINDE indicated that the group of 402 multinational companies that are located in our country to date employ 184,200 Costa Rican citizens in the sectors of Services, Manufacturing, and Life Sciences.
Diversification of Direct Foreign Investment The international promotion efforts in diverse markets made it possible for Costa Rica to welcome 11 new companies from seven origins other than the United States. This represents 27% of the total new firms that arrived in the country.
These companies’ countries of origin were: Germany, Argentina, Canada, Chile, France, Venezuela, and Guatemala.
Minister of Foreign Trade, Manuel Tovar, explained:
“Costa Rica understands the critical role that trade and foreign direct investment play, as forces to drive development. In 2022, we attracted 40 new investment projects and 61 reinvestments. Among the newcomers, 11 came from non-traditional markets. This is aligned with the efforts that we, as a country, have been making, to diversify and increase our resilience to fluctuations in the world economy." Communities outside the Greater Metropolitan Area (GMA) The direct foreign investment that was selected as having the headquarters outside the GMA made it possible to create 900 new jobs, which represents an increase of 16% in relation to 2021.
The employment accumulated in the regions outside the GMA exceeds 5,300 job positions. CINDE estimates that a similar figure for remote jobs may be added to this number, i.e., people hired by companies with headquarters in the Central Valley that keep part of their payroll working virtually from other parts of the country.
In 2022, 10 new companies were added that installed themselves in Liberia, Santa Cruz, San Carlos, Orotina, Grecia, Cóbano, and Pérez Zeledón. Specifically, this has to do with one project in the Life Sciences sector, two in the Services sector, three in Manufacturing, and four in Tourism Infrastructure.
Challenges ahead The President of CINDE, Eric Scharf, emphasized that, to keep maintaining the growth rate for FDI in the country, actions must be accelerated that ensure the formation of human talent as well as to improve key conditions related to competitiveness for the companies to be able to establish themselves not just in the country’s Central Valley, but at new development poles outside the GMA.
“All countries compete on a daily basis for FDI due to the direct impact it has on development and well-being. We have to keep improving day by day to maintain the positioning that has been harvested. Likewise, we have the pledge to continue working to keep the benefits that are generated in communities throughout the country,” he finalized.
About CINDEThe Costa Rica Investment Promotion Agency (
CINDE) is the Costa Rican agency that has spent more than 40 years attracting direct foreign investment to the country.
In its history, it has a record of supporting 400 multinationals established in Costa Rica in the sectors of manufacturing, knowledge intensive services, life sciences, and tourism infrastructure, becoming a strategic partner to achieve sustainable productivity and boosting purposeful investment to contribute to Costa Rica’s social and economic development.
It is private in nature, apolitical, and has been declared to be of the national interest. The agency has been catalogued since 2017 and 45 consecutive years by the Center for International Trade as the best national agency to attract direct investment in the world.
