President Carlos Alvarado met this Thursday with over 250 representatives of multinational companies of the life sciences sector, corporate services, advanced manufacture and food industry, in a meeting organized by the Costa Rican Investment Promotion Agency (CINDE).

The President confirmed the support and trust to the companies that bring direct foreign investment and recognized their social impact by generating almost 100,000 direct jobs for Costa Rican in addition to be being one of the engines of Costa Rican economy.

“Companies under the free zone regimen boost the economy of the country, and our challenge is to promote linkages with the rest of the economy to generate more and better employment opportunities for the entire national territory, in particular, vulnerable regions”.

“We reiterate our commitment in maintaining the stability of free trade zones, recognize their importance and for this reason we will not contemplate changing the rules or the fiscal conditions”, assured Alvarado.

The President alongside the First Lady, Claudia Dobles, the Minister of the Economic Council Edna Camacho, Ministry Coordinator of the Business Sector André Garnier and Dyala Jimenez, Minister of Foreign Commerce, answered the questions of the participants, and touched on important topics such as the projects to improve public transportation, and the goal to reduce the amount of time spent by businesses in governmental procedures, especially those related with the National Environmental Technical Secretariat (SETENA).

In addition to this the government also emphasized their purpose to better the bilingual education for companies to have access to qualified human resources.

Explaining and giving information on the different measures suggested to face the fiscal crisis was also part of the meeting, this with the purpose of reassuring the business sector that the government is working to continue to offer stability and the proper conditions for foreign investment.