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Published Monday, May 11, 2020
Government
announces $1.5billion-plus in loans for economic recovery By the A.M. Costa Rica staff The Government announced a strategy to restart the economy and generate employment with the help of $1,582,713,000 in loans that are available for business. These business loans can be used as investment capital, purchase of supplies, or to pay salaries for employees. According to the government, business owners can request a loan at any public bank. This strategy for facilitating business is one of five more strategies that the government announced to restart the economy. The second strategy is to hire more employees through more infrastructure development such as an expansion of highway # 27 between San José and the Pacific Coast, highway # 32 between San José and Limon, highway # 1 between San José and San Ramón, highway # 2 between San José and Cartago and the construction of the infrastructure for the first electric train in the country. The third strategy is a gradual reopening of economic activity. Before this, full access to national parks and hotels will be reopened, then restaurants, after that international tourism and finally massive events. In all cases, the safety and sanitation guidelines ordered by the Ministry of Health will be an obligation to all business activities. The fourth strategy will be to design a project to modernize the National Apprenticeship Institute and another project to create the Flexible Workday Law that includes new legislation for Freelancers. These projects have the goal of lowering operating costs in companies and improving the quality of employee learning to be more in line with the skills required by the companies. This strategy would streamline the procedures with public institutions. According to the government, this system of affidavits will make it easier to open businesses in the country. The fifth step is the attraction of foreign investors, through the program called Alivio or relief in Spanish. According to the government, the goal is to support companies affected by the crisis. As part of this step, another plan will be created to attract pensioners to live in the country "and Costa Rica will be promoted as a post-retirement destination," the government said in its statement. In the case of tourism, the global advertising campaign will be developed to present the country as a safe destination after the pandemic. Within this step, the government will present another project to develop and incentivize hemp production in the country. For more information regarding this project, checkout A.M. Costa Rica’s previously reported article, "President Alvarado will promote cannabis-hemp products." In the last step, the government announced that it will boost production. Especially for small businesses, agriculture and tourism. An e-commerce platform will be launched to reduce transaction costs among buyers and sellers. There is also a heavy push on the advancement of technology to improve agricultural productivity. It is expected for the government to release more information today on each of these steps for recovering the economy after the pandemic. ------------------------ Should the government lift restriction orders to start the process of economic recovery? We would like to know your thoughts on this story. Send your comments to news@amcostarica.com |
