Costa Rica seeks to reactivate its economy in times of COVID-19:

the case of medical devices company Edwards Lifesciences

Abstract

Value chains and foreign trade not only involve the movement of capital, but also the mobilization of other factors of production and the exchange of knowledge. Costa Rica has an outstanding participation in the export of medical devices, and this has led to participation in both horizontal and vertical value chains. One of the companies that decided to invest in the country is Edwards Lifesciences, a company that manufactures heart valves and hemodynamic monitoring, which is installed in the country under the Free Trade Zone regime. For this article, a bibliographic study was carried out to establish the necessary conceptualizations and an interview was conducted with one of the company's employees, which made it possible to establish the procedure carried out for the Ultra valve, which is introduced into the heart by means of a catheter.