Uber executives seek meeting with Costa Rica’s transport ministry: report

Costa Rica’s licensed taxi drivers said last week that they were “declaring war” on the likely arrival of the driver-for-hire app. (ICR Archive)

August 3^rd, 2015 (ICR News) Executives from the controversial “driver for hire” smartphone app Uber are seeking to meet with Costa Rica’s transport ministry, MOPT, the daily La Nacion reported Sunday.

Lorena Villarreal, Latin America spokeswoman for Uber, told the newspaper that company executives would be visiting Costa Rica this week to take part in several meetings.

Sebastian Urbina, vice-minister of transport, said that an Uber representative had requested a meeting with MOPT.

“A lawyer who said he worked with Uber [asked me for a meeting], but I told him that I have no room for this week,” Urbina said, adding that he and other officials are open to meeting Uber representatives when their schedules permit.

Opposition

Costa Rica’s largest union of licensed taxi drivers, known as the National Taxi Drivers Forum, said last week that they were “declaring war” against the likely arrival of Uber to the country, and has already expressed its concerns to Urbina, union officials said.

The union said it has established alliances with other groups in opposition to the service in Colombia, Panama, and Mexico with the singular goal of keeping the service out of Costa Rica.

The union’s alarm was raised when beginning in May ads seeking local administrative employees for the company – including a marketing director – began appearing in local newspapers.

Last week, some one hundred taxi drivers gathered outside the Colombian embassy in San Jose to express their solidarity with taxi drivers in Colombia, who took to protest in Bogota on Wednesday.

Opposition to San Francisco-based Uber has been strong in other parts of the world, including other Latin America countries where strikes and demonstrations have ensued.