Since 1960, Costa Rica's growth has been pushed along by several government initiatives.  It was during the 1980's, when Costa Rica pushed exports by joining the Caribbean Basin Initiative, allowing it to export products duty-free to the United States.  This created an incentive for inefficient manufacturers to cut costs to compete in this market.  It was at this time, the country established duty-free zones or "clusters", essentially industrial parks, where companies were exempted from tariffs and income taxes.  The zones were created in 1981 by the Export Processing Zone Law.  It is these areas that continually attract the high technology companies. Please see the section on Analysis Non-IT for a listing of incentives and benefits enjoyed in the Free Trade Zones.

• Zona Franca Metropolitana Industrial Park

Located in the Heredia province, the Industrial Park provides temporary and permanent sites for high technology manufacturing and office facilities.  It takes advantage of its close proximity to the Juan Sanatmaria Airport.

• Ultrapark Duty Free Zone

Current location of the Acer Information Center where all North American and Canadian technical support calls are answered.
 
• Cartago Industrial Park

15 miles from San Jose, was the first privately managed zone
 
• Santa Rosa Free Zone

Located in Puntarenas on the Pacific Coast is of interest to hardware manufacturers and exporters.

• Moin Free Zone

Located in Limon on the Caribbean seaboard is of interest to hardware manufacturers and exporters.

• Coto Sur

Near the Panamanian border is not yet engaged in any real IT business, but still enjoys all economic incentives.
 
• Examples of companies based in these areas. (See Computer Hardware/Software for more information.)

• Photocircuits Corp.

The company has based a circuit board manufacturing plant here to supply such customers as Chrysler, Ford, Motorola, AT&T, Denso, Panasonic and Compaq.  The first phase encompasses a 62,500 square foot facility employing 400 people and an investment of $5 - $8million currently and $30million in the future.¹⁰
• Western Union Financial Services International - Latin American Regional Operations Center⁴

This center provides telephone service support to Western Union Money Transfer agents throughout Central America, South America, and the Caribbean.  The initial 8,000 square foot facility was provided by the Costa Rican Investment and Trade Development Board.  The company expects to transfer to its own 20,000 - 30,000 facility within one year.  "This deal is an important step in positioning the country as the capital of high technology in Latin America", stated the Costa Rican President.
• Intel $500 million, 30,000 square-meter plant on the outskirts of San Jose^4a

Intel plans to export $700 million worth of Pentium II microprocessors from the factory (during 1998-99).  Plant expansion is planned requiring Intel to request additional use of high-voltage wires from the Costa Rican Supreme Court.
• Motorola⁸

The Components Products Group runs a manufacturing plant in San Jose that employs 985 people to produce quartz and ceramic-based products for communications equipment.

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Last updated December 18, 1998