WE ALSO QUALIFY AS A SAFE COUNTRY FOR INVESTORS

Believe it or not, Costa Rica qualified as the most secure country in Latin America for businessmen and multinational enterprises, according to the last survey for Latin Security carried out by the FTI Consulting Ibero America, for the Latin Business Chronicle seminar held in Miami, USA.

The index measures the levels of danger in each country using a scale from 1 to 5, where 1 is a country completely secure and 5 is the least.  Only three countries in Latin America were marked with a 2:  Costa Rica, Chile and Uruguay.

Joachim Bamrud, Director of the Latin Business Chronicle commented that even though Costa Rica was marked at the same level as Chile and Uruguay, the survey determined that Costa Rica is the most secured country.

Last year, Chile was the most secured, which means that Costa Rica has gone up.

“The classification is done based on reports considering the rate of homicides, crime, robbery, and assaults.  The information is obtained from the police, public and private entities, specialized institutes, and NGO’s.  It really helps to attract more foreign investment into the country”, stated Bamrud.

Laura Chinchilla, Vice-President of Costa Rica, indicated that the mark obtained was an excellent reference for foreign investors who wish to come:
“Nevertheless, obtaining a good mark does not mean that we have to lower our guard, because it is also true that the crime rates are growing rapidly, and this may provoke a bad mark in the future”, she said.

Fernando Berrocal, Minister of Security, explained that he is making a great effort to provide the police forces with resources to fight against crime and this is reflected on the national statistics.
“Many things are missing, not everything is good, but we are making an effort to fight against drug traffic and organized crime”, assured Berrocal.

Nicaragua was marked as the second most secured in Central America.

However the other nations in Central America were marked as being highly dangerous.