San José 2015 Blog: Three Charts on Costa Rican FDI

By
Elizabeth Gonzalez

Costa Rica saw less foreign direct investment in 2014, but surpassed the government target.

Latin American is taking a hit when it comes to foreign direct investment (FDI), thanks to a slowing global economy. That’s true for Costa Rica as well, despite the country being ranked the region’s third-most competitive economy, according to the World Economic Forum.

Here’s a brief breakdown of Costa Rica’s FDI figures ahead of our Latin American Cities conference in San José on June 25. 

1. In 2014, Costa Rica reeled in $2.1 billion.

Over the last decade, FDI to Costa Rica grew 165 percent. From 2013 to 2014, however, the country saw a 21 percent decrease of $571 million, according to a May 2015 report by the UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. Nonetheless, the Central American country surpassed its original goal to bring in $1.9 billion in FDI for 2014. The United States supplied nearly half of the FDI. 

2. Costa Rica is the #2 FDI destination in Central America.

In 2014, Costa Rica accounted for approximately 20 percent of Central America’s FDI intake. It has consistently ranked behind Panama for FDI in Central America since 2010.

As the only Central American country to see a decrease, Costa Rica drove the area’s overall 2 percent FDI loss. (As a whole, Latin America saw an 16.4 percent drop in FDI from 2013 to 2014.)

3. Services and real estate dominate investment sectors.

In 2014, the country landed 39 new investment projects, ranging from pharmaceuticals to biotechnology to agribusiness, which generated more than 10,000 jobs. According to the government, that means foreign companies operating in the country created 9 percent more jobs than they did the year before, though a scale-down by some companies meant net employment totaled 5,938 jobs.