Costa Rica has a competitive market economy. The market sets the price of most goods, the currency is easily convertible at several public or private banks, and there is free use and transfer of profits. While setting up a company is not impossible, Costa Rica falls short of offering ideal conditions for starting a business. The 2009 Doing Business Report (published by the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation) reveals that in 2008 it took 60 days to start a business in Costa Rica (compared to 71 days in the 2006 report). The country ranks 117th out of 181 countries with respect to the ease of doing business (compared to rank 146 out of 171 in the 2006 report).
 

Costa Rica’s open economy, along with the activity of regulatory agencies, minimizes rent generation by public and private monopolies and oligopolies. In 2007, the Legislative Assembly passed laws to open up the telecommunications and insurance markets, two longstanding public-sector monopolies. Yet the existence of more than 36 regulatory institutions (established between 1990 and 2003), many of which have limited powers and insufficient resources, hinders the state’s anti-monopoly stance. The legacy of a telecommunications monopoly and imperfect competition in the banking sector – to take the two most prominent examples of the concentration of market power – indicates that anti-monopoly policy is inconsistent.
 

There is free trade in Costa Rica, though some observers such as the Heritage Foundation in its Index of Economic Freedom complain about non-tariff barriers, mostly due to slow customs processing procedures. The country has an exceedingly open economy: With the exception of some agricultural products, the average tariff is less than 6%.
 

There are institutional foundations supporting a relatively solid banking system and capital market, each of which meet international standards. Until the 1980s, four state banks dominated commercial banking, one of which (the Anglo-Costa Rican Bank) went bankrupt in the mid-1990s. The three remaining state banks held slightly less than half of all deposits during the period under review, and are still the largest domestic banks. While plagued by critical inefficiencies, they enjoy government guarantees against default. Another 12 private banks hold 22% of deposits, and seven offshore banks hold nearly 14% of deposits. The General Superintendent of Financial Services (created in 1985, though predecessors have existed since 1952) supervises banks. The principal complaint against the banking system is that service charges and interest rates on loans are too high, and that interest rates on bank deposits are low. A study on the financial system for the 12th Informe del Estado de la Nación (2005) contends that, while solid, the banking system is subject to a multiplicity of different regulations that undermine its ability to lend money at competitive rates, especially to small borrowers.