Investment index confirms Costa Rica as a leading country in attracting FDI in the world

• FDI flows grew 20% in 2023, with a total amount of US $3,788 million. 

• Country stands out among those with the best performance in attracting new investments, being first in Latin America and third globally. 

San José. August 8, 2024. The IX edition of the Greenfield FDI Performance Index, published this Thursday by fDi Intelligence magazine, confirms Costa Rica’s outstanding performance in attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) projects in 2023, indicating that investment projects are attracted 7,9 times more than the size of our GDP suggests. This reinforces the good results achieved last year, closing with US $3,788 million in FDI flows, an increase of 20% when compared to 2022, according to data from the Central Bank of Costa Rica (BCCR).

Thanks to its value proposition, Costa Rica continues to be an attractive destination for investors, standing out for factors such as specialized human talent, competitive incentives, legal security, sustainability, trade agreements, among others. These aspects have positioned our country as a role model in attracting companies from various sectors, such as manufacturing and services, thus confirming that the Costa Rican economy is advancing, opening new opportunities for other industries.

In addition to the successful results in terms of FDI, which represents 4.5% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the country has also experienced a significant growth in its economy. During the last two years, Costa Rica has had continuous increases in GDP: 4.6% in 2022 and 5.1% in 2023, exceeding the growth of world GDP in this last year by almost two percentage points.

“The determined efforts that the country has been making in terms of attracting foreign direct investment continue to produce positive results. GDP growth reflects a dynamic economy that shows benefits in various sectors, including exports, productive chains and the activation of domestic consumption, driven by the employment created,” said Manuel Tovar, Minister of Foreign Trade.

On the other hand, Laura López, General Manager of the Foreign Trade Promoter of Costa Rica (PROCOMER), added that “the place that Costa Rica occupies within the Greenfield FDI Performance Index is prestigious and is an additional metric that demonstrates our leadership in investment attraction. Nonetheless, the efforts made by PROCOMER have a comprehensive vision that aims at bringing opportunities to all regions of the country and the impact in terms of employment and investment goes beyond what the index considers.”

According to fDi Intelligence, Costa Rica reached the third position worldwide and is first in Latin America among the countries with the best performance in attracting new foreign direct investment (FDI) projects. Furthermore, it is the only Latin American nation to be in the top 10 of the ranking.

The Greenfield FDI Performance Index measures the relative number of investment projects in relation to the size of the economy. This indicator is quite sensitive to the size of the economy, and, due to its methodology, it is even possible for very small economies with a modest number of investment projects to achieve good results in the ranking.

In order to calculate this index, fDi intelligence uses a combination of information from public sources, such as news from the media, news from investment agencies, market research, publications from the companies themselves, among others. Therefore, it becomes relevant to consider that diversity and the nature of those so