Costa Rica Snared 3.9 Percent More Foreign Investment in 2004

Foreign investment in Costa Rica was tabbed at $596,800,000 in 2004, up nearly 4 percent from the previous year, in a clear-cut sign of international confidence in that Central American nation, the Presidency’s Economic Council reported this week.

The note indicates that inflows of foreign cash account for a considerable chunk of the country’s effort to reverse a severe trade balance shortfall.

“The $32.6 million jump from 2003 to 2004 reveals that Costa Rica is by and large an attractive nation for foreign investors,” said Edna Camacho, chief of the Costa Rican Development Initiative Coalition.

Mrs. Camacho is boding the creation of 6,000 new full-time jobs in the country, in addition to some 6,800 jobs that direct foreign investment has already spawned.

The U.S. goes on to be Costa Rica’s number-one trade partner and its top foreign investor with 65.7 percent of last year’s total cash flow from overseas. Most of that money is poured into the nation’s industry, tourism and services.