“Costa Rica has taken advantage of the favorable trade agreements that it has signed” Says Anabel Gonzolez, Cost Rica’s Foreign Trade Minister of the recent growth of the country’s exported goods.

Costa Rica has almost doubled its gross export revenue over the last ten years. Exports went up to $10.5 billion in 2011. In 2002, out bound Costa Rican products only amounted to $5.2 billion.

This is an average annual growth of eight percent according to PROCOMER (Promotion of Foreign Commerce). Jorge Sequira, The General Manager of PROCOMER stated that the growth has been all across the board and has been driven by broad product ranges as well as the diversification of markets and creating dynamic export companies.

“In addition we are working on the diversifying exports. Along with traditional products such as coffee and bananas sectors such as technology continue to grow,” said Foreign Trade Minister Gonzalez.

“Statistical Yearbook 2011”, a detailed analysis of the years 2007 through 2011, shows that last year 2416 companies were exporting a total of 4,772 products to 145 different countries. This is up a bit from the official information that in 2007, 2071 Costa Rican Companies exported 4,015 products to 150 countries.

In 2011 the main export destinations were the United States, leading at 38.1% of Costa Rica’s export consumption, followed by the rest of Central America at 19.9% then Europe at 17.9% and Asia 11.7%.

The most exported products in Costa Rica were Intel Micro-processors totalling $1.892 billion, bananas totalling $778.3 million, pineapples totalling $725.8 million, transfusion and infusion equipment at $460.7 million, and coffee at $374 million.

Source: Mis Finanzas