Capital of Costa Rica Ranks Second for Doing Business

According to the "Doing Business 2015" report, recently presented by World Bank, San Jose now ranks second among Central American cities for doing business. The Costa Rican capital came in second only to Panama City. Other cities taking top spots on the list included Guatemala City and Santo Domingo, which took the third and fourth spots on the list.

The study was the first conducted by the World Bank for the purposes of analyzing businesses in Central America. As part of the study, the World Bank evaluated business regulations for both small as well as medium-sized operations in Costa Rica as well as Guatemala, El Salvador, Panama, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic. While the latter is technically part of the Caribbean, it was included in the study due to the fact that it participates in regional organizations, including the U.S.-Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement and the Central American Integration System.

As part of the evaluation, a number of indicators were taken into consideration, including the ease of starting a business in each country, the ability to obtain building permits, the ease for trading across borders and registering a property.

Costa Rica received top ratings for its ease of procedures for registering a property. While Costa Rica showed a need for improvement in obtaining building permits, it still ranked fifth on the list of 22 cities that were evaluated as part of the study. Medium-sized cities were noted as performing better in terms of handling construction permits.

The report's primary criticism with regional countries was the significant gap that exists in terms of business regulations and their actual implementation. Countries that were deemed to perform best in the areas of launching a business have implemented online systems and one-stop resources.

Variations were noted in registering a property, primarily due to national policies, according to the report. Such policies include the efficiency of property registries. In order to make improvements within those areas, the report recommended making use of regional forums for coordinating join reforms that would result in the facilitation of trade.