• The company will produce dehydrated pineapple in the Caribbean side of Costa Rica (GMA) to export it to Mexico.
• Instantia invested US$350,000 in the last month and a half.

San José, Costa Rica. January 21, 2021. The multinational company in the light manufacturing and food industry sector, Instantia, will establish a new plant in Roxana de Pococí, at the Caribbean side of Costa Rica, where it will produce dehydrated pineapple for export.

*Article originally published at https://bit.ly/2XZh1Pm / Partner content from CINDE

• Located in Escazú, the company will open its offices this month and recruit over 35 collaborators through the first semester. 
• Synter invested more than US$250,000 in the initial stage. 

January 19, 2021. San José, Costa Rica. Synter Resource Group, LLC, based in Charleston, South Carolina, U.S.A., is North America’s largest, dedicated provider of business process outsourcing (BPO) services to the transportation and logistics industries. The company chose Escazú, Costa Rica, to open its first operations in Latin America. 

• Article originally published by Investment Monitor Magazine.
• Business and investment leaders discuss how Costa Rica stands to be a primary destination for FDI that places higher value on sustainability and well-being in the wake of Covid-19.

By prompting significant focus on the environment and personal well-being, the Covid-19 pandemic has also brought into sharp relief the role of the investment community in supporting a sustainable recovery.

• Global Software Company to Hire Sales Talent to Propel Long-Term Regional Growth

San Jose, Costa Rica, Dec. 16, 2020 – San Francisco Bay Area-based software company Autodesk, Inc.(NASDAQ: ADSK) today announced plans to open a Costa Rica-based office in support of business across the Americas. 

• Largest innovative photovoltaic generation and energy storage project opens in Costa Rica.
• The system uses solar panels to charge batteries during periods of lower energy cost and then, subsequently to deliver stored energy during the two peak periods when cost is highest.
• Swissol implemented the project, in conjunction with the English / German company, Rolls Royce Solutions.

The companies Proquinal – a member of the Spradling Group – and Swissol, accompanied by government authorities, inaugurated the largest and most innovative project for the storage of alternative energy in Costa Rica, which will help reduce the pressure on public electricity generation while also contributing to the country’s carbon neutrality strategy.

• $350 million investment will create more than 200 new jobs.
• The assembly facility will be operational in the second half of 2021.
• Move follows the start of some test operations in Costa Rica in April this year.

December 2020. Intel Corporation announced today that it will invest $350 million US dollars over the next three years to start assembly and test operations in Costa Rica. The investment is anticipated to create more than 200 new jobs in the coming months and the facility will begin to operate in the second half of 2021.

"Intel continually evaluates its operations around the world to ensure that we have the right capacity to supply global demand. We will start the assembly and test facilities in Costa Rica to expand our global capacity so we can continue fulfilling Intel customer’s needs,” stated Ileana Rojas, General Manager of Intel Costa Rica.

“The existing infrastructure, synergy with the test operations that already exist on-site, the talent, the free trade zone regime, and legal environment gave Intel a favorable option to start its assembly capacity in Costa Rica,” added Rojas.

The assembly and test facilities will be at the company's campus in San Antonio de Belén and are expected to begin operations in the second half of 2021, once the necessary certifications have been approved. Assembly/Test operations are part of Intel’s Manufacturing and Operations organization. Once the wafer manufacturing process is completed at Intel’s fabs, the cut wafers are sent to an assembly and test facility. Each chip is assembled into a package that protects it and enables it to connect to other components. Finally, it is tested for functionality.

President Alvarado emphasized that “it is an incredibly powerful sign that amid a pandemic Costa Rica has gained strength as a reliable investment destination. It also shows that the country is building long-term relations with investors since our association with Intel is a story of working together for more than two decades. An investment of this caliber ingrains the Intel mark and opens considerable employment opportunities for people with different job profiles, who will be able to add to the exports generated by Tico talent for all the world.”

The new employees will be hired in multiple areas of engineering and there will also be opportunities for technicians in disciplines such as electronics, electromechanics, and related. Job opportunities are posted at www.intel.com/jobs

Andrés Valenciano, Minister of Foreign Trade, celebrated the announcement of this new expansion and the job opportunities it will create for many Costa Ricans.

“For Costa Rica, Intel symbolizes a pioneer in the high-tech industry that opened the door for many companies to establish in our country, similarly attracted by the talent of our people, our most valuable asset. With a history of constant transformation that today translates into a diverse range of processes, the local facility is well-positioned to service the global marketplace competitively, with elevated resilience and value-added. Such high-level performance is particularly important in a challenging context driven by Industry 4.0, and further accelerated by the COVID pandemic. We are proud to host leading companies from strategic industries that like Intel, continue to choose us as a home for their operations. We appreciate this new symbol of trust in our capacity, and bid tidings of further innovation, as the company discovers new horizons from where to continue serving its clients worldwide, with increasing sense of purpose and vision of sustainability.”

Intel in Costa Rica: high-value operations

Assembly and Test operations join the high-value operations that are already in Costa Rica. Intel Costa Rica currently employs more than 2,200 people. Its operations are divided into two large centers of excellence:

1. The Research and Development (R&D) Center: Currently the largest R&D Center in the country, focused on the design, prototype, testing, and validation of integrated circuit solutions.
2. The Global Services Center: This center performs multifunctional business processes supporting Finance, Human Resources, Sales and Marketing, Quality, and Information Technologies across the globe.

CINDE’s Managing Director, Jorge Sequeira Picado, commented that “with this project, Costa Rica is proving itself as a dependable partner for all nearshoring strategies that can help to seek out redundancies in supply chain optimization. Costa Rica has demonstrated that it can provide business continuity and a robust market-access platform for achieving this goal. This new Intel phase is a complement to its different business verticals, which range from smart manufacturing to research and development.”

In addition to the operations, Intel continues to invest in the people and local communities of Costa Rica. Over the last decade, employees have volunteered more than 190.000 hours and, only in 2019, Intel donated over US$268.000.

“During 2020, our focus has been on mitigating COVID-19 impacts, starting with our employees and expanding to the community with donations of over US$100.000 to the National Emergency Commission and the community, more than 23.000 facemasks to the Social Security Organization and over 1.000 hours in skill-based volunteering to develop mathematical models, analysis and monitoring tools which have been critical for public institutions fighting the pandemic”, concluded Ileana Rojas.

This year, UNCTAD gave a special award to the Costa Rica Investment Promotion Agency recognizing its effort to mainstream gender in investment promotion as part of broader work on gender and investment.