Starting a Business in Costa Rica – Part 2

Recently I wrote about consumer trends in Costa Rica and how they are tied in when looking at new business opportunities.  Knowing your environment and cliental is obviously a critical step in identifying the right business.  And while having a grasp of consumer trends is an excellent start[...]

it is important that anyone starting a business in Costa Rica also has a basic understanding of the economy as well. The economy in Costa Rica has always been one of the most stable and strongest economies in Central America.  I could give you all sorts of statistics on things like the GDP and per capita income, but I think its more practical to look some basic info and facts

Medical Tourism

Medical Tourism is becoming a big business and is still in it’s infancy.  Costa Rica is and continues to be one of the principal destinations for this new industry.  Countless businesses related to this sector are growing and expanding, all of them obviously result in growth for the local economy.

Workforce

If a U.S. business is considering outsourcing their business, Costa Rica often makes the list and in many cases is the winner.  A highly educated workforce that is very tech savvy and fluent in English gives Costa Rica a dominant advantage.  HP, Intel, Amazon, Microsoft and other fortune 500 companies are already here and more continue to come.

Political Stability

Central America has had it’s up and downs, but Costa Rica has a distinct advantage of having a stable democracy for over half a century.  No doubt this history of stability and diplomacy has helped attract new businesses and investments.

Agriculture

Coffee, bananas and pineapple.  Costa Rica produces much more, but those are the big three, all crops that are consistently stable in both production and demand.

Tourism

Many of us sometimes forget that Costa Rica is still very much an untapped market.  The record number of tourists to come to Costa Rica in one year is just slightly over 2 million.  In comparison Mexico gets over 20 million tourists annually!  A 50% increase in tourism for Costa Rica would still only equal 3 million tourists.

All of these sectors and facts equal economic grown and more importantly opportunities.  On my next article we’ll take a look at American’s who have began a business in Costa Rica.