Costa Rican Competiveness Minister Visits the Dominican Republic

Jorge Woodbridge, Costa Rican Competiveness Minister, visited the country to see the advances made here within the business climate, an achievement that was recently recognized by the World Bank through “Doing Business.” Mr. Woodbridge affirmed that the current climate in the Dominican Republic makes it “very easy” to do business here.

He explained that he is trying to establish a sense of “mutual enrichment” between Dominican achievements and Costa Rican successes.

The Costa Rican official said he wanted to get to know “the good things and to try to help you understand our experiences in the investment and export fields as well as to listen to your experiences that for me are very important.” He explained that he is trying to establish a sense of “mutual enrichment” between Dominican achievements and Costa Rican successes.

Mr. Woodbridge said he decided to look into the Dominican experience “because it has been done so well.” Although he added that “we may have done some things better but, in many areas, you have done better than us.”

Andrés van der Horst Álvarez, Director of the National Competitiveness Council (CNC), explained to Woodbridge that in “the CNC we have been working on improving our procedures and regulations for a long time in order to create a better business and investment climate for our country.”

Mr. van der Horst Álvarez emphasized that “just as the Dominican Republic has been able to reach these goals, so can Central American countries like Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. They are all capable of making Central America an attractive place for investment regardless of which country it is. I have always said that competition does not only come from among us, but rather from beyond the horizon…from China where production is always increasing and from other Asian countries like India. It is with them we have to compete, not with countries like our own.”

Woodbridge explained that in his country there is “a confusion of laws, decrees and resolutions,” and that Costa Rica has a “very complicated legal structure and a convoluted legislative assembly which hinders one´s capacity to take action.”

“We haven´t made important reforms, first we have to make structural changes,” he added.

The government official announced that he invited CNC Director Andrés van der Horst Álvarez to “visit us in Costa Rica and tell the Costa Rican people a little about what we´ve discussed here today and how we can make things better. Sometimes you can´t be a prophet in your own country.”