Park hosts 31 world-class companies

• 84% of companies located in the Park have expanded their operations beyond their initial scale.

August, 2022. Coyol Free Zone celebrates its 15th anniversary as a leader in the life science industry, with total exports of US$2,088 per year, thanks to the performance of the 31 world-class companies that have believed in the advantages offered by this Park and by Costa Rica.

In just five years, foreign sales of this free trade zone, located in El Coyol de Alajuela, increased from US$806 million in 2015 to US$2,088 million in 2020.

Research, innovation and differentiation have marked Coyol Free Zone’s growth as a pioneer in smart manufacturing with the production of heart valves, surgical instruments, enteral devices, knee implants and gastric probes, among many other medical devices that leave Costa Rica to provide a better quality of life to thousands of people around the world.

These devices exported from Coyol Free Zone represent close to 30% of the total exports of the manufacturing segment of the country’s Free Zone Regime. In this segment, 52% of exports correspond to precision and medical instruments.

Medical devices are consolidating their position as the most dynamic sector of the economy, a source of added value and quality jobs in different branches of Life Sciences.

For Carlos Wong, Managing Director of this free zone, “the value of these results lies in the human talent and innovation to provide tailor-made solutions for Life Sciences companies”.  This earned Coyol Free Zone international recognition as the Best Free Zone in the Americas and a privileged place in the Top 10 Free Zones in the World.

Companies at the highest level

Coyol Free Zone hosts 31 companies:

• 13 original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), 7 of which are in the Top 30 of the world’s largest Medical Device companies.
• 9 contractors
• 6 suppliers, and
• 3 companies that provide complementary services.

See inset: Worldwide elite

To date, 84% of these companies have expanded their operations within the Park beyond their initial scale.

This gives life to a cluster of companies that reaps competitive advantages thanks to the proximity of customers, suppliers and contractors on site, coupled with an increasingly sophisticated and specialized set of local suppliers.

This business ecosystem includes companies supplying goods and services, such as packaging, molding, extrusion, logistics and sterilization (E-Beam and ETO), which allows companies to reduce costs and maximize time and resources by exporting directly from Costa Rica to their final markets, thus increasing productivity and competitiveness.

During Coyol Free Zone’s 15 years of operation, the national companies that provide services to the Park’s companies as suppliers have seen their sales, technical skills, and payrolls grow thanks to the relationship with multinationals that promote the generation of productive linkages at the highest level.

This relationship inserts microenterprises into the global production chains of multinationals so that they can increase their sales, provide job stability to their employees, and provide continuity to their services with industrial parks and other companies in the Life Sciences cluster. To reward those national suppliers that impact the industry with their services, inputs or components, Coyol Free Zone developed Coyol Impulsa in 2021, an award that provides exposure to companies that develop their work with excellence and that can become success stories.  This motivates SMEs and entrepreneurs who wish to forge a path in the Life Sciences industry.

As a leader in the most dynamic sector of the country’s economy, Coyol Free Zone has the Esencial Costa Rica certification, granted by the Foreign Trade Promoter of Costa Rica (PROCOMER). It is also the first free zone in the country to be certified ISO 9001:2008 for Quality Management Systems for Project Management.

Worldwide Elite
Coyol Free Zone’s leadership is supported by the companies that operate there, 7 of which are among the Top 30 Medical Device companies in the world, according to the MPO (Medical Product Outsourcing) 2022 Report, which lists them according to sales reported in the last fiscal year:

Coyol Free Zone is the leading medical device export park in Costa Rica, exporting more than $2 billion per year, which is equivalent to 30% of the exports of the manufacturing segment of the country’s Free Zone Regime.

For the past two years, it has been part of the Top 10 Free Trade Zones in the World and was named Best Free Trade Zone in the Americas, Best Free Trade Zone for SMEs and Free Trade Zone of Excellence for Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance Practices by the international magazine fDi Intelligence.

It is also the Best Free Trade Zone in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Most Innovative Free Trade Zone of the Year and the Best Business Center for Life Sciences and Advanced Manufacturing, according to The European magazine, as well as the Most Resilient Free Trade Zone in the World by Covid-19, according to Investment Monitor.