Continuing with the expansion plan initiated by the company more than a decade ago, Vielca Ingenieros has opened offices in Costa Rica, where it expects to reach a turnover of more than $350,000 during the rest of the year.
The delegation is located in Bethlehem, within the metropolitan area of the capital San José and very close to the airport. As Vicente Candela, CEO of Vielca, explains, “the huge activity of recent months has driven the need to have a permanent headquarters in this country to have direct and close relations with customers, something that is fundamental for us.” Following the implementation of the Emergency Programme for the Comprehensive Reconstruction of Costa Rican Infrastructures following Hurricanes Fiona and Julia, the engineering department is carrying out initial conceptual studies of reconstruction needs in the road, housing and education sectors.
In addition, a number of projects have been initiated in the regions of Bethlehem, Cartago, Guanacaste and Alajuela, involving land-use planning and management. In addition, several municipal solid waste treatment plants have been designed, incorporating a waste energy recovery system.
Likewise, Vielca Medio Ambiente, part of the Vielca Group, has been working on environmental consultancies for the World Resources Institute (WRI), with the aim of analyzing vegetation cover in Costa Rica through satellite photointerpretation.
Betting for Central America
With permanent delegations in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala, Vielca Ingenieros has long been present in Central America. In recent years, he has carried out a wide range of work, from drafting and supervising drinking water, sanitation and water purification works for various cities and rural communities, to projects for the construction of a church, hospitals, schools and judicial centres, as well as studies of forest planning, forest inventory, cadastre, salt intrusion studies and aquifers, as well as the design of reservoirs, pipelines, roads and viaducts.
Candela underlines the strategy that has led them to achieve these goals: “the company continues to grow in Latin America by betting on the technical quality in all its projects, on the personalized attention to its customers and on the full involvement in the progress of the countries in which we work. This has allowed us to get where we are today, with an estimated turnover of €10 million by 2024.”
With more than 550 employees in the area and more than 60 active projects in all branches of engineering, architecture and environment, Vielca Ingenieros now adds its fifth branch in Central America, consolidating its firm commitment to this region, where it has also carried out various altruistic projects. Thanks to the prestige gained through all these actions, engineering has carried out specific projects in other countries such as Belize or Venezuela (the latter in South America).
Hydraulic engineering as the main axis
The Vielca Group, made up of engineering, architecture, environmental, renewable energy and testing laboratory companies, has an important reputation in the field of hydraulic engineering. With more than 35 years of experience and a workforce of 80 employees in Spain and 550 in the delegations, in 2023 it had a turnover of 12.5 million euros, of which nine million (approximately 70%) correspond to the international market.