Plans for an industrial and free‐trade zone in Costa Rica, linking Atlantic and Pacific seaports and a central airport, were announced here yesterday.
The project is designed to give Costa Rica a key industrial role in the five‐nation Central American Common Market. It was announced by José Figueres, former President of Costa Rica, on behalf of President Francisco J. Orlich of Costa Rica.
The project was said to have been planned long before the present Panama Canal Zone crisis and in no way represented an alternative shipping route.
“It would be too costly for this purpose, except in a real emergency,” Dr. Figueres said.
“The basic aim is to provide a new industrial center that can develop with the Central American Common Market and also export by either ocean or by air to any part of the world. For Costa Rica it is a measure of self‐help that should give us a strong position in the Common Market.”
Key points in the tri‐zonal area, to be officially desibnated as “zones of international commerce,” are Limon, a Carib‐
The project is designed to attract foreign companies, which would have duty‐free or preferential‐tariff access to the Central American Common Market. The Common Market, in addition to Costa Rica, includes
Companies setting up in the zones would also have advantages for export overseas by sea or air as the result of tax and tariff exemptions. As planned each of the zones would be a complete industrial park. They would be connected by an existing railway running some 140 miles from LimOn to Puntarenas.
The Pan American Highway would provide the main shipment route to other Common Market countries. In addition to the trade zones, the Costa Rican Government is planning a coastal barge canal from Limon northward to the mouth of the San Juan River.
Dr. Figueres was joined in the announcement by J. R. Parker, president of the Parco Company, an international development organization of New York, and Ted Weiner, president of the Texas Crude Oil Company of Fort Worth, codevelopers of the project.
Management of the zones will be handled by a mixed Government and private company to be known as Operadora Portuaria Costarricense, S.A.