Local Costa Rican Suppliers to Global Partners: The Next Business Opportunity

A multinational’s production line may depend on a local company most people have never heard of. That supplier might maintain essential equipment, provide technical support, or respond when a disruption threatens delivery schedules. Its contribution becomes visible when something goes wrong.

For Costa Rica, these relationships offer opportunities that extend beyond the next purchase order. Costa Rican suppliers can turn their experience into specialized services, stronger businesses, and potentially international sales. EY’s study, “Built in Costa Rica: Companies Driving Competitiveness Behind the Free Trade Zones,” explores that possibility through interviews with companies connected to free trade zone value chains.

Why Strategic Partnerships Create Greater Value

Filling an order establishes a commercial relationship. Becoming the company a customer relies on to solve a recurring operational problem creates room for a deeper partnership.

The distinction matters in manufacturing and other demanding operations. A delayed repair, unavailable component, or interrupted service can affect activities well beyond the supplier’s immediate assignment. Customers therefore need partners who understand their requirements and deliver consistently under pressure.

As Alejandra Arguedas, Tax Associate Partner at EY Central America, Panama, and the Dominican Republic, explains, behind the free trade zone regime’s success:

“There is a network of specialized local companies.”

EY identifies several contributions these businesses already make:

• Technical support that helps customers address operational problems.
• Specialized knowledge developed through industry experience.
• Infrastructure that supports demanding business activities.
• Responsiveness when disruptions threaten delivery.
• Operational continuity that helps customers maintain reliable production and services.

These capabilities help explain why supplier development deserves attention alongside investment attraction. The opportunity rests on making each supplier’s contribution dependable enough to support an enduring business relationship.

Building on Expertise That Already Exists

The companies interviewed did not arrive at multinational customers’ doors without experience. They already had technical knowledge, industry familiarity, and operational capabilities.

That distinction is essential. The study describes relationships that validated and deepened existing expertise, rather than suggesting multinational investment created those capabilities from scratch.

Meeting more complex requirements gave Costa Rican suppliers opportunities to refine how they worked. The next step is to make those improvements repeatable through:

• Processes that employees can apply consistently.
• Specialized services that can serve additional customers.
• Business models that can support sustained growth.

This progression also appears in CINDE’s assessment. Ana María Romero, CINDE’s Investment Advisory Manager, identifies an opportunity for local companies to:

“Evolve from a traditional supplier role toward a strategic partner role.”

For Costa Rica, developing and exporting business capabilities could build on its established success in attracting investment.

Five Priorities for Stronger Suppliers

EY proposes five areas for action: capabilities, knowledge, training, collaboration, and connections. Together, they address both what suppliers can deliver and how customers discover that value.

Capabilities: Identify the technical and operational strengths that solve important customer problems. A clear understanding of those strengths gives investment and commercial development a practical focus.

Knowledge: Share expertise and lessons that help businesses respond to more demanding requirements.

Training: Develop the specialized talent needed to put that knowledge into practice and deliver consistently.

Collaboration: Bring companies together around customer needs, identify complementary capabilities, and address shared challenges.

Connections: Link suppliers with buyers, projects, and commercial opportunities. Expertise has limited room to grow if potential customers never encounter it.

These priorities reinforce one another. Better connections can reveal capability gaps; training can address them; collaboration can help companies respond to opportunities that would otherwise remain beyond their reach.

What Makes Scaling Difficult

Winning a demanding customer does not automatically make expansion straightforward. The study identifies the availability and retention of specialized talent as important constraints. A business cannot reliably broaden its commitments without people able to deliver the work.

External conditions can also complicate growth, even where technical expertise is strong. These include:

• Infrastructure and logistics.
• Energy costs.
• Exchange rate fluctuations.

Some improvements fall within a company’s control, including its internal processes and workforce development. Others require coordination across businesses, educational institutions, infrastructure providers, and public authorities.

EY identifies these barriers without quantifying their relative impact. That leaves an important practical task: understanding which obstacles most directly limit each supplier’s ability to expand.

Taking Costa Rican Capabilities Abroad

Several companies interviewed see opportunities in other markets with free trade zone ecosystems. For these Costa Rican suppliers, experience serving complex operations at home could provide a foundation for offering solutions elsewhere.

That remains an opportunity, rather than evidence of confirmed export contracts or announced overseas projects.

To support this transition, EY proposes four mechanisms:

• A map of strategic suppliers to identify relevant capabilities and improve their visibility.
• A financing vehicle to support investment in technology, automation, and infrastructure needed for scaling.
• A specialized technical talent working group to focus attention on workforce requirements.
• An internationalization platform to connect local capabilities with opportunities in other markets.

Each mechanism addresses a different part of the growth challenge: visibility, investment, people, and market access. Their usefulness would depend on whether suppliers can translate that support into services customers need and operations they can sustain.

For interested businesses, the starting point is concrete:

• Identify the expertise developed through serving customers locally.
• Determine where similar customer problems exist abroad.
• Assess the people, investment, partnerships, and delivery capabilities needed to serve those markets.

A Broader Measure of Success

Costa Rica’s opportunity is to help more Costa Rican suppliers build businesses around sophisticated, reliable capabilities. Progress should reflect the value those companies contribute, the problems they solve, and their ability to serve additional markets.

Attracting multinational investment and developing internationally competitive local businesses can strengthen one another. The next stage of growth will depend on turning that connection into durable commercial opportunities for Costa Rican companies. Their success would give existing supplier relationships a wider economic role.