THE Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on Tuesday welcomed formally welcomed Costa Rica as its 38th member.

Costa Rica has now completed its domestic procedures for ratification of the OECD Convention and deposited its instrument of accession. This brings to a successful conclusion an accession process that began in April, 2015.

"We are delighted to welcome Costa Rica into the OECD family at a time when multilateralism is more important than ever. We have been impressed that the cross-party commitment to OECD accession that we witnessed during the accession process continued into the ratification phase, despite the pandemic," said OECD Secretary-General Mr Angel Gurria.

OECD member countries formally invited Costa Rica to join the organisation in May, 2020, following a five-year accession process during which it underwent in-depth technical reviews by 22 OECD Committees and introduced major reforms to align its legislation, policies and practices to OECD standards.

The reforms spanned a wide range of policy areas and included a comprehensive reform of competition policy and enforcement, a redesign of the national statistics system, the introduction of criminal liability of legal persons for foreign bribery and the establishment of a register of shareholders to ensure tax transparency.

Costa Rica will be the fourth member country from the Latin America and Caribbean region to join following Mexico, Chile and Colombia.