The Global Institute of Entrepreneurship and Development headquartered in Washington showed that Costa Rica is the country in Central America with more opportunities for entrepreneurship.

Costa Rica’s strong points are in the Perception of Opportunities and Abilities; however the Institute indicated that the country is behind in process innovation, risk capital and absorption of technology.

The country has a great deal of potential for enterprise innovation but is conditioned by its capacity to strengthen its economic institutions and government systems.

The United States is the most entrepreneurial country in the world with a score of 86.2 while Chad holds the last position with 9.9 points out of 132 evaluated nations.

Costa Rica scored 36.2, followed by Panama with 32.4, Salvador 25.6, Guatemala 21.1 and Nicaragua 19.4

The Global Competitiveness Index (2016-2017) of the World Economic Forum, shows Costa Rica is in position 54 among 138 economies in the world, the country went down two positions in the ranking in comparison to the 2015-2016 index.

When it comes to Latin America, Costa Rica is the third most competitive country, behind Chile which holds position 33 and before Panama which sits in number 42.

The Index shows Costa Rica’s economic strength is based in the quality of its education system and its health system, which makes the Costa Rican workforce highly educated and healthy, capable of solving complex tasks and easily adaptable to change. Innovation is also a strong point.

The weaknesses continue to be the governmental bureaucracy, inefficient use of public resources, inadequate infrastructure (specially the roads that are considered among the worse in the world), high interest rates and difficult access to financing that makes it challenging for the country to advance.

Switzerland, Singapore and the United States are at the three top positions of the Competitiveness Index.