The country remains down in the ratings of the international indix that measure the competitiveness of the economies. Costa Rica fell seven places in the Doing Business index for 2020, published annually by the World Bank.
In the measurement, Costa Rica moved from the 67th place in 2019, to the 74th in the general index, which evaluates 190 countries. For the current year, the rating obtained by the Costa Rican economy was 68.8, while in the table for next year the score is 69.2.
“Costa Rica, unfortunately, is in sixth place in Latin America, surpassed by Chile, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Colombia and Jamaica. Costa Rica continues to have a problem in some areas such as the protection of SMEs, including the issue of hiring and late payments, those are still problems in Costa Rica,”
explained economist Daniel Suchar.
According to the expert, the 2020 index reveals that Costa Rica stands out in areas such as electricity generation, where there is an important sustainability in the supply.
But just as Costa Rica is very good at giving credits, unfortunately it is bad by collecting them,”
he added in light of the results.
Suchar also explained that
Cross-border trade is moderately evaluated, it is an important task. Remember that Guatemala and Honduras have customs integration and there’s the issue with Panama that has a better integration with other countries. Costa Rica is still better evaluated than its Central American peers, but we are very distant from regions such as New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Denmark and South Korea that are the ones leading the ranking.”
In the Latin American and Caribbean region, Chile continues to lead Doing Business in 59th place globally. It is followed by Mexico (60), Puerto Rico (65), Colombia (67) and Jamaica (71) as the five economies in the region with the best business climate.
Regarding the region, the World Bank stressed that the Caribbean economies implemented a record 19 reforms over the past year to facilitate the operation of national companies.