The Costa Rica News (TCRN) – While Costa Rica’s Foreign Direct Investment target of $1.9 million for 2014 was exceeded, growth slowed with an overall decrease of 21% compared to 2013. The Costa Rican Coalition for Development Initiatives (CINDE) is calling for more initiatives to improve Costa Rica’s international competitive profile.
Like many Latin American countries, Costa Rica, in the early 2,000’s really started focusing on globalization to advance their development efforts, and the primary strategy for doing this was/is by attracting and harnessing traditional and nontraditional foreign direct investment (FDI).
Traditional FDI is focused on high technology industries, such as computer manufacturing, software development, and biotechnology, whereas nontraditional FDI focuses on service-related industries that generally require higher levels of education from employees; these include financial services, technical support centers, and call centers. Nontraditional FDI strategies help diversify economies, create higher-paying jobs and to develop linkages to transnational firms which expose new opportunities on the value chain in the global market.
In 2014 Costa Rica showed declines in real estate sectors as well as telecommunications, energy and insurance, tourism and the commercial sectors.
Highlighted by CINDE is the need for improved, legal processes, labor regulations and human resource training.
The Costa Rica News (TCRN)
San Jose, Costa Rica