Economy & Business - October 2024

COSTA RICA | FDI up. On 2 October Costa Rica’s official export promotion agency (Procomer) released new figures showing that Costa Rica received a total of US$2.11bn in foreign direct investment (FDI) in the first half of 2024, which it describes as a “record”, and up 3% on the same period in 2023. According to a Procomer statement, this represents 67% of the target FDI for this year. The same figures show that 59% of FDI in the first half of 2024 went to manufacturing, 14.1% to tourism, 8.5% to the services sector, and 7.2% to the financial sector. The general director of Procomer, Laura López, said that diversification had been key to maintaining this growth. The same Procomer statement notes that last year the agency announced 59 new foreign investment projects in Costa Rica, of which 13 were installed outside of the Greater Metropolitan Area (GAM). According to a July report by Procomer total FDI to Costa Rica in 2023 totalled US$3.79bn.