As I walked through the state-of-the-art facilities of the new Paso Canoas trade facilitation hub in Costa Rica, I was captivated by local officials’ enthusiastic explanations. The project is the first of its kind, and the excitement about it was contagious. The public’s reactions made me realize that Paso Canoas was about much more than physical infrastructure and the trade in goods.
The outcome was a positive development experience in trade facilitation grounded in long-term public policies and strengthened by robust civic participation.
Today, Paso Canoas is an Integrated Control Center with an impressive covered area of 14,000 m² and nearly 50,000 m² of outdoor facilities. A key hub for trade, tourism, and investment attraction, it will bring economic and social gains to nearby communities and trigger a ripple effect with much greater reach.
For instance, Timothy Scott Hall, director of government affairs at Intel, a technology multinational that manufactures microchips in Costa Rica, explained to Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) experts that Costa Rica’s ports cannot accommodate the Panamax vessels the company uses to import unassembled microchips from Asia. As a result, ships must dock in Panama, and the raw microchips are then transported overland to Intel’s plant in Belén, Costa Rica, where they are assembled, tested, and packaged for export to major global destinations. Because of this, Intel places great importance on secure, efficient customs procedures at Paso Canoas, which is strategically important for major companies investing in Central America.
A total makeover
The Costa Rican Border Integration Program has taken a transformational approach that goes beyond the investment financed by an IDB loan.
Paso Canoas is expected to boost the country’s annual trade earnings by around US$95 million. However, the program hinges on much more than just financial benefits—it’s about creating a virtuous economic circle in the border region. The new facilities will drive greater economic growth that will be reflected in new commercial activity, more logistics hubs, more streamlined processes, trade support services, and better infrastructure development.
The new facilities at Paso Canoas—around 300 km south of San José by road and just 4 km from the Panamanian border—rival a cutting-edge domestic airport in terms of physical infrastructure and technological equipment. It starkly contrasts the old border management center, where tape and delays made it a genuine user ordeal.
José Antonio Salas, president of the Costa Rican Chamber of Commerce, walks through the new complex, amazed by the transformation.
“The difference is dramatic. The old border management center was hectic: the facilities were too small so they were always packed,” remarks the 51-year-old businessman, whose organization represents Costa Rican businesses abroad.
Salas describes the earlier land transit system as “slow and inefficient,” providing a hostile experience for truck drivers. They were forced to park their trucks, get out, and run back and forth to complete bureaucratic or border control procedures, constantly worrying that problems might arise with the paperwork they submitted at multiple counters.
I asked Salas about a figure that revealed just how inefficient the region’s older facilities are: trucks move through them at just 16 km/h, compared to an average of 60 km/h at border management centers (also known as ports of entry) globally. At some crossings, this speed drops to below 1 km/h, with drivers having to turn their engines on and off over 25 times. Wait times in the region further underscore this severe loss of competitiveness: trucks often spend six or more hours in lines before crossing the border.
As Salas notes, not only does this “put a dent in our competitiveness,” it also leads to additional costs that “compromise the environment and the final consumer, who ultimately foots the bill for this operational inefficiency.”
A mindset shift
Marjorie Lizano Páez, president of the Costa Rican Chamber of Independent Freight Carriers, agrees with Salas. She underscores the inefficiencies that plagued customs procedures at the old Paso Canoas facility, where lines of waiting trucks often stretched up to 7 km.
The 49-year-old business leader comes from a family with strong ties to freight transportation. She has high hopes that this IDB-backed project will help cut wait times, radically transform customs procedures, and improve how border officials go about their work. “There were too many obstacles across the board,” she says. “Most procedures were hampered in some way.”
Lizano Páez’s optimism is well-founded. The IDB’s border modernization programs were specifically designed to tackle inefficiencies like long wait times. These programs also help mitigate the high social risks associated with smuggling restricted goods and substances while improving security factors and enhancing human well-being.
They mark a paradigm shift that brings together the modernization of physical infrastructure with innovations in control processes and the use of advanced technologies such as scanners and other critical monitoring equipment. The outcome is a state-of-the-art border management system that harnesses artificial intelligence (AI) to achieve optimal results.
Under the new operational model at Paso Canoas, truck drivers whose documentation is in order will no longer need to leave their vehicles, unload cargo, or go from one office to the next in the scorching heat. Instead, an intelligent risk management system will scan the vehicle’s license plate and transmit encoded information directly to the relevant customs or immigration officer.
When Panamanian officials also begin using the Costa Rican infrastructure at Paso Canoas, the coordinated border management model will really come into its own. The new facilities are a transformational milestone in border operations. The outdated checks that used to be scattered across a dozen monitoring offices are now a thing of the past, replaced by a streamlined, integrated system within each country and, more significantly, across the two nations. Costa Rica and Panama are now operating a joint border control model in which both countries’ authorities conduct their immigration and customs checks under the same roof.
Lizano Páez underscores the need for a mindset shift across both the public and private sectors. “We need to change how we think,” she says. In her view, officials need to start seeing things differently for the process to succeed. She also praises the collaboration between the state and businesses in implementing the Paso Canoas program, emphasizing the effectiveness of this two-way dialogue.
Improving conditions for transport workers
Andrés Muñoz, president of the Panamanian Chamber of Freight Transportation, is also enthusiastic about the potential of the new infrastructure and hopes that Costa Rica’s modernization model will soon be implemented at other border management centers in Central America.
Muñoz is concerned that the outdated facilities and suboptimal conditions at many border ports of entry compromise drivers’ safety and well-being. He praises the new infrastructure at Paso Canoas, which “provides decent working conditions for drivers,” making it easier and safer for them to do their work.
He predicts that the new facility will boost the economy by creating jobs in the freight sector and beyond. Tourism is also likely to benefit, he says, and the ripple effect will no doubt reach the entire community.
“A whole new world”
Oscar Rodríguez López, a Venezuelan-born Costa Rican national and vice president of the Costa Rican Chamber of Industry, shares his colleagues’ positive take on the new management center. Among the benefits he values most are improved processes, cost reductions, greater transparency, and better control over illegal shipments. He points to another major gain: the improved connection with the Panama Canal, which enables cargo ships to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans without making a long journey around South America, significantly reducing travel times and goods transportation costs.
The 62-year-old engineer describes the new infrastructure at Paso Canoas as “a whole new world—it’s like being on another planet.” He’s confident that the renovated border management center will have a positive effect on the private sector, envisioning the facility as an environment where everything will function optimally.
“To drive progress in a country, you need a long-term vision, job creation, and capital investment,” Rodríguez López says. These are three key strengths of Paso Canoas, which has already set a new standard for Central America.
He believes the project to be a powerful catalyst for collaboration between Panama and Costa Rica, driving economic growth for both. He also sees the project as an incentive for other countries to modernize their border ports of entry, thus strengthening regional integration policies.
Convinced that the way a message is delivered can be as powerful as the message itself, Rodríguez López and most of the business leaders I talked to at Paso Canoas praise the collaboration between the public and private sectors during the project. They also spoke highly of the IDB representatives, whose role goes beyond financing and technical cooperation. Their efforts focus on building bridges to facilitate dialogue among stakeholders, including a variety of civil society players, and overcoming obstacles that might seem insurmountable to those without hands-on experience in the region. This approach fosters better understanding, increased trust, and more transparent decision-making processes, Rodríguez López explains.
One of the biggest challenges is establishing best social-environmental management practices through dialogue and community engagement.
Muñoz is deeply impressed by the project’s commitment to environmental protection. He describes the rescue of over thirty wild animals and the careful preservation of orchids and bromeliads.
A dedicated wildlife crossing was even built for titi monkeys and sloths, which can sometimes now be spotted in the area.
“In the end, it all comes down to what we decide to pass on to the next generation. We need to show young people that you can build great things without harming wildlife or the environment,” he reflects before saying goodbye.
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