EscucharSAN JOSE - The U.S. pharmaceutical company Abbott Laboratories will install a plant for the fabrication of medical instruments in this country, according to a source from the government's project to attract investment in Costa Rica.
Although the news will be announced -possibly this week- by President Rodríguez, last Tuesday Minister of the Exterior Samuel Guzowski announced that he would soon reveal the arrival of a major new investment in the country.
The informant, who wished to remain anonymous, added that the investment will amount to $100 million and that Abbott will contract some 1,200 employees.
La Nación tried to reach Guzowski last Friday but he was unavailable for comment.
Earlier on Friday, after a meeting with Enrique Egloff, the General Manager of the Costa Rican Coalition of Initiatives for Development (Cinde in Spanish), Guzowski did not directly reaffirm the earlier reports, but said that there were only a few outstanding details which could be resolved by the end of this week.
Abbott Laboratories was founded in 1888 by Dr. Wallace Abbott. The company presently employs more than 54,000 people around the world and had sales of over $11 billion in 1997. In the first four months of this year, the figure reached $3.045 billion.
Among its principal products are medicines such as antibiotics.
The source confirmed that Abbott could establish a production plant very similar to that of Baxter Healthcare in Costa Rica in the duty-free zone of Cartago, which produces medical instruments for hospitals.
It was also known that the directors of Abbott have been in the country for weeks and that they have finished organizing the details of the land deal which could be under way for a plot in Barreal de Heredia.
Abbott would become one of the largest commercial investors in the country following the microprocessing giant Intel. Over the course of the year other high technology companies have decided to come to Costa Rica:
On January 23 the U.S. microelectronics companies Photocircuits, EMC Technology and DEK USA announced plans to begin operations here.
The financial company Western Union announced the location of its Latin American control center in Costa Rica on April 30.
In July, the North American company, Remec, indicated that it will install a plant in the country to manufacture products that work with the radiophonic band, with an investment of $3.5 million.
