Micro, small and medium-sized companies, with potential and interest in carrying out commercial exchanges between Costa Rica and the United States, will have a better chance of achieving this goal thanks to a link created between the Latin American Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CELIEM) and the Costa Rica Chamber of Commerce USA (CRCUSA), a business chamber led by Costa Ricans and based in Florida, USA.
CRCUSA’s purpose is to promote trade, especially between Costa Rica and Miami with Costa Rican businessmen, adding to this its representations in New Jersey and Los Angeles. This works in actions such as business roundtables, trade missions, exhibitions, training and coaching, individual and group support. Therefore, these efforts would contribute to improving export objectives for MSMEs established in Costa Rica.
CELIEM, from its experience in monitoring and business development of more than 450 MSMEs in Costa Rica, has identified the internationalization potential of many companies that can benefit from these tools to achieve that goal and thus take advantage of the advantages offered by this strategic destination for international trade.
An opportunity for internationalization and chaining
“With this strategic alliance, we seek to connect the companies served by our CIEs with the North American market, but in the same way link Costa Rican businessmen established in the United States with the Costa Rican market. We see with this an opportunity for internationalization and chaining of these MSMEs, where our service and support model can become a valuable resource to ensure that the internationalization process takes place at a time when the company is ready for it, seeking its sustainability and adding from our management a complementary possibility to the efforts that the country has been making to strengthen the export offer, especially of micro, small and medium-sized companies”, explained Luis Álvarez, Executive Director of CELIEM.
It should be noted that according to the SME Situation Statement 2021, the USA is the second most important destination for exporting MSMEs, which demonstrates the need to insert more businesses in taking advantage of said market.
According to figures from Procomer, during the first quarter of this year, US$1,933 million were exported to the United States, while in the same period of the previous year the figure was US$1,522 million, representing an increase in sales of 21%. They also indicate that the State of Florida is the gateway to the US for Costa Rican products thanks to the logistical advantages it offers, so this agreement will be of great contribution to the benefited MSMEs. “With the signing of this Agreement, we make great progress in trade cooperation between Costa Rica and the United States. It means great support for the sector of micro, small and medium-sized companies, so that we as organizations established in Costa Rica and the USA, can carry out many other benefits for this sector”, said RossyPedroza, president of the CRCUSA.
Promote advisory, support, research and training programs
This agreement will not only affect the level of commercial linkage, it will also promote advisory, support, research and training programs in the respective spheres of competence of each institution, developing and implementing innovative business support products and services that promote competitiveness based on the model of attention adopted by CELIEM, including the development of methodologies, contents and tools for the provision of these services.
Likewise, it allows the consolidation of an ecosystem that favors economic growth and the maintenance or generation of new jobs in the region, adding this agreement to the alliance that CELIEM had already established with the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) of Florida International University (FIU), on August 2022.
