Costa Rica News – When I first read this report I truly thought to myself that, I wonder if the World Bank is smoking crack? Then I realized that this was probably based on what the system says, and not what truly happens.
But maybe it is worse in neighboring countries, I might be biased knowing the frustrations I have encountered personally as well as the stories I have heard about “Doing Business” in Costa Rica.
Remember this is based on San Jose, and doing business in that metropolitan area.
We all complain about how long it takes to get anything done in Costa Rica, so we are surprised to find out that Costa Rica actually ranked number one in the region for being the quickest to process property registrations. It takes 19 days and 5 steps to register a property here but 20 steps and three months in Nicaragua.
This information comes from “Doing Business,” a report about cities in Central America and the Dominican Republic. This was presented by the World Bank, which measures business regulations in 22 cities and principal ports.
We also were in the first few positions for three other indicators: starting a business, dealing with construction permits and trading across borders. The lowest position we got in any category was fifth out of 22, for obtaining a construction permit.
There is great disparity among our Central American neighbors and even between our own cities and rural areas. One thing Costa Rica is ahead on is online transactions for construction permits. This gets delayed, however, when municipal approval is also needed.
