Costa Rica, nestled between Nicaragua and Panama, is famous for coffee, biodiversity and, most recently, medical devices. Through the establishment of free zones and trade liberalisation, it has managed to grow its economy in certain sectors and boost its gross domestic product more than 12-fold over the past 30 years.

Now, as the country turns over a new page in its foreign direct investment (FDI) strategy, Manuel Tovar, Costa Rica’s minister of foreign trade and president of trade and investment agency Procomer, speaks with fDi about the country’s need for a “disruptive” solution.

Q: What is the government’s vision for the country’s future FDI flows, following the decision to bring Costa Rica’s FDI attraction into the hands of Procomer?

A: We need to diversify by origin and sector. We reviewed the FDI strategy that has been in place and has been successful in specific niches like medical devices and corporate services. But it was concentrated heavily on those sectors and in the metropolitan area. So, we needed a game changer, which is why we decided to bring back FDI attraction into the hands of Procomer.

Now, we have different targets — one of them is to go beyond the US market. There’s a lot of margin for improvement in Europe. I was recently in Spain, where there is a lot of appetite. Spain shares our language and there’s a lot of appetite from Spanish companies to invest in Costa Rica’s agro industry and in cyber security.

Q: What has the impact of the 2022 cyber security attack been on Costa Rica?

A: We had to learn the hard way. As soon as we came to government, we had to learn what to do to create a strong defence.

Challenges like that one bring opportunities. Now, we’re seeing more and more investment in this sector coming from international companies. Costa Rica has become a regional hub for cyber security.

So cyber security has become an enabler of FDI in specific sectors. We’re also about to deploy 5G and we want to ensure that the provider of 5G is a trustworthy provider.

Q: What are Costa Rica’s global ambitions?

A: We are a government that is very fond of economic freedom. Now, we’re expanding our trade agenda and we are in negotiations with the UAE and Israel — on the latter we’ll have to wait a little bit. We just closed a deal with Ecuador and are aspiring to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. We come with a very aggressive trade agenda and trade spurs investment. We are affirming the Costa Rican way but we are [looking] to become a better version of what we were.

We are a disruptive government and the worst thing we can do is stay in our comfort zone while our competitors are advancing at their own pace. We’ve evolved from an economy that, 30 years ago, produced plantain chips and now we produce microchips. So that’s what Costa Rica has to offer and that’s our main point of FDI appeal: disruption. 

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

This article first appeared in the December 2023/January 2024 print edition of fDi Intelligence

Do you want more FDI stories delivered directly to your inbox? Subscribe to our newsletters.