Press Conference

The Secretary of Economic Development and Commerce of Puerto Rico, Manuel Laboy Rivera announced the establishment of the headquarters of Kastech’s subsidiary “KASTECH LATAM” in Latin America and the Caribbean in Puerto Rico.

KASTECH LATAM plans to create 50 direct jobs, mostly engineering staff, within three years, as well as immediate expansion to the Latin American market, said Sri Patibandla, the president of Kastech SSG.

In charge of local operations is the Puerto Rican entrepreneur Enrique Grau Pelegrí, who enters as a partner and president of KASTECH LATAM.

“Kastech LATAM will start in January with the hiring of administrative personnel, and then they plan to generate some 50 direct jobs in the next 36 months to meet their expansion in Latin America and the Caribbean. We continue to comply with the commitment of Governor Ricardo Rosselló Nevares to create well-paying jobs that allow the growth of our working class professionals through the establishment of new investment, ” said Manuel Laboy, secretary of the Department of Economic Development (DDEC) during the announcement made at the headquarters of the Foundation for Puerto Rico in Santurce.

“We want to leverage the efforts of the public, private and non-profit sectors to attract new business to Puerto Rico,” said Ella Woger, executive director of Invest Puerto Rico.

For his part, the president and chief executive officer of Kastech SSG, Engineer Sri Patibandla stated that since the inception in September of Kastech LATAM LLC, “The company already hired salespeople and has been meeting with contacts in the Dominican Republic, Panama, and Colombia, in collaboration with Puerto Rico’s commercial offices. This week I will travel with my team to Bogotá, with the aim of incorporating the subsidiary of Kastech LATAM LLC in Bogotá, which will respond directly to Puerto Rico.”

Mr. Patibandla stated that the company had allocated a budget of 5 million dollars for the expansion of KASTECH LATAM, which will be focused primarily on Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Panama, Costa Rica, Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile and Brazil in the next 60 months.

He added that, in addition to the commitment of recruitment, “The goal is to start here in Puerto Rico” a center of operations and training of personnel like the one they have in India, where they offer 24 X 7 remote support to their clients.

This center would be established in one of the properties in the inventory of the Industrial Development Company (Pridco), with the intention of signing a lease with option to purchase. The center should be around 15,000 square feet.

In turn, the company – which currently operates from an office in Guaynabo – is scheduled to invest USD 250,000 in its eventual headquarters.

Because part of Kastech LATAM’s plan will focus on exporting bilingual technology services from Puerto Rico to markets such as Europe, Grau informed that the company already has before the DDEC a request to obtain a decree by Law 20. This statute allows paying 4% of contributions on income tied to that export.

On the scope of action of Kastech, Patibandla explained that the company has 20 proprietary products, which include automation tools, human resource management, test administration, asset management, library, and parking. Its products serve a variety of industries such as health, higher education, retail, pharmaceutical, transportation, banking, telecommunications, energy, and government services, he added.