Zona Franca América in Heredia, Costa Rica

In 2007, Locus Economica Founder and CEO Jean-Paul Gauthier evaluated Costa Rica’s free zones’ legal framework’s WTO compatibility on behalf of the World Bank’s Foreign Investment Advisory Service (FIAS), resulting in various recommendations in this regard. In 2010, an extensive modification was made to the country’s enabling legislation for the zones, to bring it into compliance with the guidelines of the World Trade Organization and give the program a new lease on life. Today, 47% of Costa Rica’s goods exports and 64% of services exports (excluding tourism) emanate from its zones. As of 2018, 125,000 Costa Ricans were employed in free zones, 57% of them being women, and 1 in 5 formal jobs created in the country since 2015 were in or related to the zones, making up 9.2% of total private sector employment. There were 467 active companies in Costa Rican zones as of July 2019