Costa Rica knows how to attract world-class companies; it must now build a world-class economy

The OECD has repeatedly highlighted factors that limit Costa Rica’s productivity: gaps in human capital, the informal economy, inadequate infrastructure, difficulties in innovating and transferring technology, regulatory barriers, and weak production linkages between multinationals and local firms.

“For this reason, Costa Rica should consider setting up a small technical unit within the Office of the President dedicated to productivity and growth. This is not about creating a new ministry or yet another bureaucratic structure, but rather a small, highly technical team with the capacity for inter-institutional coordination. Today we have competent institutions that manage different parts of the economic agenda, but none has a mandate to look at the bigger picture. We have people responsible for many trees, but no one in charge of looking after the forest,” comments Elías Soley, a partner at ECIJA in Costa Rica and an expert in public policy, in his column for La Nación.

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