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New Investor's Manual Boosts Business The government last week announced a special free gift, valued at $120, that could become priceless for anyone who seeks to start a business in Costa Rica – a new Spanish-language step-by-step investors’ start-up guide in paper, CD-ROM and Internet versions. The "Investors’ Manual" produced by the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Commerce’s Procedure Simplification Program can’t make the squeaky wheels of bureaucracy turn faster, but it does provide clear instructions on everything from inscribing a new company or a trademark in the National Registry, to getting permits and carrying out an environmental impact study. Tourism and export investors each benefit with separate chapters. Entrepreneurs or multinationals looking to build a hotel or other tourism-related project will learn the conditions for operating within the Maritime Zone – the 200 meters above the high-tide mark along coastlines and, specifically, how to apply for a Maritime Zone concession. Tourism incentives are also explained, as are steps to get the Costa Rican Tourism Institute’s (ICT) declaration to operate businesses such as hotels, travel agencies, rent-a-cars, transportation agencies and restaurants. The export chapter explains the broad spectrum of procedures to set up an export company under the Free Trade Zone law and incentives for qualifying companies. Other chapters, dedicated to permitting and construction, detail the steps for carrying out an environmental-impact study, acquiring municipal approval for construction plans and getting health permits and municipal patents. Included in each chapter are all the government forms needed to apply for each step, along with time estimations to complete each step, investor rights and types of recourse if either side – government or the investor – fails to meet its legal requirements. The CD version, which comes with the book, contains the full text of laws that regulate each type of business. The CD also has software that, when installed, allows the user to download policy and procedure updates – anti-virus-style – from the manual’s Internet version, found at www.tramites.go.cr. Via presidential decree, government ministries are now required to work to simplify their business-start-up-related procedures and ensure that the Internet Investors’ Manual is up to date. "This document is the best expression of the work of the Procedures Simplification Program to introduce clarity where there is confusion, simplicity in place of complexity, single steps instead of duplication and fixed deadlines instead of relaxed ones," said President Miguel Angel Rodríguez April 26, as he officially presented the new publication to the business community, embassy officials and bureaucrats gathered at the Camino Real Inter-Continental Hotel. The manual is a product of the government’s Impulso program, which began in January to simplify business start-up, make businesses competitive and create quality, high-paying new jobs. The Impulso program also created the Procedure Simplification Office. The manual’s book version is a well-made two-ring binder with loose-leaf pages printed on coated paper and sturdy laminated-cardboard chapter dividers. The notebook comes with a cardboard carrying case. The following agencies helped with the manual’s production: PROCOMER, the Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT), the Investment Promotion Office (CINDE) and the ministries of Foreign Trade, Health, Labor, the Environment, Finance and the Presidency, as well as private-sector business chambers. According to Irene Viscaíno, press spokeswoman for the Procedure Simplification Office, each set, comprising CD and printed manual, cost the government approximately $120, but is free for the asking. About half of the 500 sets were distributed during, and in the days following, the April 26 presentation. Printed copies are becoming increasingly rare, but are still available at the Procedure Simplification Office 3-3, on the third floor of Centro Colón, in west San José, Tel: 222-0944, Fax: 221-8358, e-mail: ivizcaino@comex.go.cr |