The Diplomat
The Costa Rican Minister of Public Works and Transport, Mauricio Batalla, visited Madrid this week and, accompanied by Ambassador Adriana Bolaños, met with the Spanish Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, and held meetings with companies interested in public works construction and financial organisations.
According to the Central American country’s delegation, Costa Rica is seeking to attract more investment in the coming years to close the infrastructure gap suffered by the Central American country, in a context in which climate change is forcing it to have more resilient infrastructure to preserve the lives of Costa Ricans.
Mauricio Batalla expressed in his meetings with Spanish investors the advantages that Costa Rica offers to businessmen, among which he highlighted the ‘jaguar’ economy and rapid growth that represents the country, “with the only drawback of the gap in infrastructure that they are trying to fill”.
According to Europa Press, the Costa Rican delegation has taken advantage of this trip to close some agreements with the Spanish government and Spanish businessmen, inviting them to do business in a calm atmosphere. Before July, Costa Rica and Spain will seek to close a deal for the sale of some trains to the Central American country at symbolic prices, which will allow it to renew its fleet and improve the railway network, which is not yet as electrified as the Spanish one.
According to Batalla, “Spain is the gateway to Europe for Costa Rica and a way to access high technologies, so it values very positively the long relationship and the coincidence in values to reach European companies and investors”.