San José. July 19, 2024. The Foreign Trade Promoter of Costa Rica (PROCOMER) participated in the World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies (WAIPA) regional meeting, held on July 17 and 18 in the Dominican Republic, presenting the country’s value proposition as a destination for foreign direct investment (FDI), and the evolution that the services sector has had.

The event brought together representatives from Costa Rica, Guatemala, Bahamas, Bermuda, Saint Lucia, Curacao, Honduras, United States, Guyana and the host, the Dominican Republic, as well as the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the International Trade Center (ITC), the World Tourism Organization (WTO), the United Nations United Nations for Industrial Development (UNIDO), and the Executive Director of WAIPA, Ismail Ersahin.

PROCOMER was represented by the institution’s Investment Manager, Mónica Umaña, who was in charge of the panel “The Case of Costa Rica: Investment Opportunities and Development of ICTs”. During her speech, Umaña highlighted the fundamental role of FDI in Costa Rica’s economic development. Currently, more than 400 multinationals have chosen this Central American country for their operations.  

“The session allowed us to present Costa Rica’s value proposition, highlighting how service centers have evolved to more complex operations, more sophisticated processes, in several languages, as well as centers of operational excellence. Right now, 45% of Costa Rican exports are services, a figure higher than the OECD average,” said Umaña.

Other advantages highlighted in PROCOMER’s intervention were the availability of bilingual labor in the country, the work carried out by the institution through the trust in order to finance training and achieve upskilling and reskilling of the companies’ workers, and the constant monitoring of the fluctuating and evolving needs of multinationals.

During the event, PROCOMER shared the stage with the International Trade Center (ITC), which presented reflections on the actions of investment attraction agencies, including the importance of adapting the value proposition of the countries, and working around development of human talent. On the other hand, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) highlighted the results of the World Investment Report 2024, focusing on Investment Facilitation and Digital Government.

By 2023, Costa Rica’s service exports grew by 16.0% compared to 2022 – the second highest growth in the last 5 years – reaching an amount of $14,796 million. Other important items mentioned included the growth of sub sectors such as tourism (+$855 million), other business services (+$818 million), computing, information and telecommunications (+$262 million), financial services (+$45 million) and transformation services (+$30 million).

Regarding exports participation, the other business services sub sector is in first place with 42% of the total, followed by travel with 32%, computing, information and telecommunications with 14%, while transformation services are in fourth place with 5%.