(QCOSTARICA) The Costa Rican investment promotion agency, CINDE, that woos multinational companies to settle in this country has earned an award from Site Selection Magazine as best in the region for attracting business to Costa Rica.
The hard-working agency has for decades wooed dozens of companies to settle here, meaning thousands of jobs.
The editors of Site Selection and a distinguished panel of global foreign direct investment experts and site consultants chose CINDE and a host of others similar agencies around the world in the first annual best to invest, Top Global Investment Promotion Agencies for 2015.
According to Site Selection, the agencies accumulated the most points in a set of criteria that include:
- Most professionally responsive to investor inquiries
- Most knowledgeable and linguistically diverse staff
- Most access to user-friendly databases of sites and incentives, both general and sector-specific
- Best information on timing expectations for permitting and other processes
- Best access to recent investors in the region for testimonials
- Best reputation for protecting investor confidentiality
- Best reputation for after-care services
“The Best to Invest Top Agencies Awards serve three purposes,” says Mark Arend, editor in chief of Site Selection magazine. “First, they recognize the commitment to excellence the leadership and staff at these agencies have exhibited to date. Second, they are a reminder to these agencies of the importance of maintaining and building on their professionalism and excellence in the future — to not relax their standards. And third, they signal to potential investors that their experience learning about a region and 
its capital investment potential via these agencies’ staff and online resources will result in a highly favorable outcome, even if a decision to invest capital does not result. My colleagues on the panel and I salute these agencies’ success today and in the future.”
In the Latin America & Caribbean category, CINDE shares the spotlight with Invest in Bogota, Panama Pacifico, and Invest TT,
CINDE was lauded for its ability to promptly answer questions of investors, using a diverse and multi-lingual team, providing ready access to data and information about tax incentives, as well as obtaining permits from bureaucrats for investors:
- 7.1% of GDP comes from Education
- Its GDP per capita is one of the highest in the region ($14,344).
- Costa Rica has the highest literacy rate in Latin America (96.2%).
- It has a young population: 34% is between 15-34 years old.
For the Minister for Foreign Trade, Alexander Mora, “The fact that CINDE has that recognition confirms and demonstrates that the quality of work and the impact that CINDE is having in the process of attracting investment to the country is world class. We will continue to work together and, I repeat, it is excellent news because CINDE being recognized by an international publishing and consultant group specialized in identifying new potential sites for investment this way is a certification of quality and first class work “.
CINDE has more than 30 years working in the investment attraction of high-tech companies in sectors such as Services, Advanced and Light Manufacturing, Life Sciences, Agribusiness and Food Industry. In three decades of work we have managed to generate 85,000 direct high quality and well paid jobs by the companies that have installed their investment projects here.With notes from iNews.co.cr, CINDE.org
