The banking laws here are what actually prohibit the truly wealthy from moving to Costa Rica.
They also prohibit any large but new business from opening in a way that benefits investment.
Don´t think so? Go to your bank and tell them that you want to lay the groundwork for starting a new business and ask them how to wire in 500M dollars to cover development\start up costs .... For a bank like BNCR it will start with a refusal to even open the account. Then they will ask the Central Bank and they will plainly state that to bring in that much foreign currency will negativly impact the value of the Colon and deny it as well.
You can, however, leave your money where it is and import everything you need and pay the rather large construction costs to a Costa Rican company that has an offshore account.... or you may trickle the money in adding to all the standard delays and get started on the slow path which itself is not conducive to any sound business plan.
And that is the official position of the laws as written.
In short, new businesses that are not part and parcel to an existing multinational that has no problem working within the present high level loan and interest rate structure are simply not welcome to make major investments here regardless of source or provenance of their monies.
The banking laws here are what actually prohibit the truly wealthy from moving to Costa Rica.
They also prohibit any large but new business from opening in a way that benefits investment.
Don´t think so? Go to your bank and tell them that you want to lay the groundwork for starting a new business and ask them how to wire in 500M dollars to cover development\start up costs .... For a bank like BNCR it will start with a refusal to even open the account. Then they will ask the Central Bank and they will plainly state that to bring in that much foreign currency will negativly impact the value of the Colon and deny it as well.
You can, however, leave your money where it is and import everything you need and pay the rather large construction costs to a Costa Rican company that has an offshore account.... or you may trickle the money in adding to all the standard delays and get started on the slow path which itself is not conducive to any sound business plan.
And that is the official position of the laws as written.
In short, new businesses that are not part and parcel to an existing multinational that has no problem working within the present high level loan and interest rate structure are simply not welcome to make major investments here regardless of source or provenance of their monies.