AFZ participated in the high-level forum “Costa Rica: LATAM’s Hub of Excellence,” hosted by The Business Year. The event brought together leaders from the public and private sectors to discuss Costa Rica’s competitiveness, regional positioning, and the factors that influence investment decisions. The forum enabled a strategic dialogue on the role of key industries, including the Free Trade Zone Regime, in strengthening Costa Rica’s integration into the global economy.

During the forum, AFZ General Manager Carlos Sandíhighlighted how free trade zones serve as a platform for scaling internationally focused service operations, as Costa Rica continues to consolidate its position as a global services hub. This perspective aligns with findings from PROCOMER’s study, “Costa Rica: Global Services Hub: A Snapshot of the Sector,” which underscores the diversity and sophistication of the multinational services industry, serving markets in more than 45 countries and in multiple languages.

The discussion also emphasized the sector’s shift toward higher value-added services linked to digital transformation, advanced analytics, engineering, cybersecurity, and operational excellence. In this context, AFZ contributed to the conversation on how business parks and free trade zone ecosystems help enable increasingly complex, knowledge-intensive operations that meet international standards, supported by specialized talent and multilingual capabilities.

AFZ’s participation in this forum reaffirms its commitment to strengthening the services sector within free trade zones and to fostering initiatives that enhance national competitiveness. Talent development, technology adoption, and effective collaboration between public and private stakeholders remain essential to sustaining growth and positioning Costa Rica as a trusted, strategic platform for global services delivery.