Global report on innovation points out Costa Rica’s systemic lag in infrastructure

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The fact that a cab was swallowed by a hole in a highway in Alajuela is news. But the fact that the country’s infrastructure problems are not going away is already a systemic problem.

This “systemac” lag is precisely one of the problems that Costa Rica has not been able to solve and has generated some of the worst international evaluations. The most recent was the one made by the Global Innovation Index 2021 of the World Intellectual Property Organization, released this Thursday.

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In the general innovation rankings, Costa Rica is in 56th place, far from first. Measured overall, however, infrastructure is one of the worst rated. On this indicator alone, Costa Rica falls to 71st place.

The only area where the country falls even lower is market sophistication where obstacles to doing business continue to generate problems.

The document takes into account 132 economies. With the 56th position, the country remains stuck in the same place as a year ago.

For the Chamber of Industries, in the case of Costa Rica, the historical results of the index are of concern, since weaknesses continue to appear in areas such as infrastructure, people graduated in science and technology, and market sophistication; recurring weaknesses that could translate into structural problems that the country has not known or wanted to solve.

“Our current situation should be seen as an opportunity and a call for the country to make the necessary decisions in a systemic manner that will enable sustainable development and allow us to reap the social impact of innovation,” explained Enrique Egloff, president of the Costa Rican Chamber of Industries.

In Latin America, Costa Rica ranks third after Chile and Mexico, and together with Brazil, it is one of only four countries in the region that is among the top 60. However, except for Mexico, none of the Latin American countries has climbed consistently in the ranking over the last ten years, according to the Chamber of Industries.