Costa Rica’s goods exports show signs of recovery, an example of this is the 5% growth that occurred in September, when $ 990 million were exported, that is, $ 48 million more than in the same period of 2019.
After starting the year with a strong growth of + 1% in January, + 15% in February and + 11% in March; In April, the consequences of the pandemic on exports began to be evident when they fell -12%, in May -20%, in June -4%, July remained with a variation of 0%, in August there was a growth of + 1% and in September the + 5% mentioned.
“The results of the exports of goods in September of this show us the resilience and effort of the Costa Rican export sector that, despite facing a global crisis, has been able to reinvent itself and continue to send its products abroad. The same happens with the services sector, which, when excluding the travel category, shows a growth of 4%. These results motivate us and challenge us to continue working and developing commercial promotion strategies so that our exporters continue to find business opportunities outside our borders”, stated the Acting Minister of Foreign Trade and President of the Board of Directors of PROCOMER, Duayner Rooms.
Pedro Beirute, General Manager of the Foreign Trade Promoter, stated that, compared to other Latin American countries, Costa Rica’s performance is showing a positive trend in exports. “The impact of the pandemic has affected the whole world. According to data from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in Latin America, the fall in exports of goods has been -7% accumulated to August of this year, so it should be noted that the fall in the accumulated of Costa Rica has been only one -1.5%, giving us signs of recovery, and encourages us to redouble our efforts to continue supporting the businesses of the country’s export sector ”, he added.
Strong data
According to data from the IDB and PROCOMER, the interannual variation of goods exports in some Latin American countries shows significant drops, such is the case of Bolivia with -35%, El Salvador with -8%, Chile with -7.5% and Brazil with -7%; in the case of Costa Rica, the drop is -1.5%.
For its part, the World Trade Organization (WTO) estimates that at the end of 2020 the variation in exports of goods in North America will be -14.7%, in Europe -11.7%, in Asia -4 , 5%, Central and South America -7.7% and in other regions of the world -9.5%. The estimate for Costa Rica is -5.9%.
Exports of goods in the third quarter 2020
In the accumulated from January to September 2020, Costa Rica’s goods exports show a slight drop of -1%, which means $ 84 million less than in the same period of the previous year and a total of $ 8,539 million.
The precision equipment and medical, agricultural and food industry sectors show growth in the accumulated to the third quarter with + 2%, + 1% and + 6%, respectively. Other sectors such as chemical, pharmaceutical, electrical and electronics, metalworking and plastic show drops of -1%, -12%, -11% and -9%, respectively.
In the case of destination markets, there is an increase in exports to North America (+ 2%), South America (+ 12%) and Asia (+ 4%). While exports to Central America fell by -6%, to the Caribbean -13% and to Europe -3%.
Exports of services to the first semester 2020
Like exports of goods, those of services have also been affected by the pandemic, especially due to the fall in the travel category. In the accumulated to the first semester of the year, the sector exported $ 4,052 million, which is equivalent to -17% in relation to the same period of 2019.
However, excluding the travel subsector, there is a growth of + 4%. The knowledge-intensive subsectors such as business services and computer science, information, and telecommunications contributed to this growth with + $ 165 million and + $ 38 million, respectively.
The IDB also analyzed the year-on-year variation in services exports and indicates that knowledge-intensive services have declines in several countries in the region, except in Costa Rica (+ 9%) and Colombia (+ 1%). In Mexico, the fall is -9%, in Brazil -8% and in Chile -7%.
