 |
| The increased production
of computer chips has enhanced the sophistication
of the electronic industry; high-tech exports
now represent 56% of total exports as opposed
to only 13% as was the case 40 years ago. |
| Courtesy Procomer |
 |
| The exportation of coffee,
sugar and bananas now only accounts for 13%
of the country's total exports. The drop has
been due in part by global economic trends within
the agricultural sector, but mostly by the country's
huge push for economic diversification over
the past few decades. |
| Courtesy CORBANA |
 |
| Courtesy ICT |
 |
| Sardimar’s gourmet seafood
items can be found in more than a dozen countries,
including Venezuela, Mexico, Puerto Rico, the
United States and Canada. The plant, located
in Puntarenas, is considered to be one of the
most modern in Latin America. |
| Courtesy Sardimar |
The role of Procomer is to open up new markets,
and to help companies in Costa Rica that simply
want to sell their products abroad. As Mr. Kissling,
General Manager of Procomer, puts it: “We can
look at it in the following way –we are opening
up a road with a Bulldozer, taking the measurements
and putting down the pavement for companies to see
these new opportunities we create for them and export
their products.”
If one looks at the index that defines how deeply
Costa Rica’s economy is integrated into the world
economy, it is clear that the index has steadily grown.
The figure now is 135, meaning that imports and exports
added together represent 135% of GDP.
Costa Rican exports climbed from $1.1 billion USD
in 1985 to $5.5 billion in the year 2000. Foreign
Direct Investment (FDI) has grown even more, from
$70 million to $409 million over the same time period.
In 2000, the top twenty foreign, mainly American,
affiliates represented 44% – almost half –
of Costa Rica’s total exports. According to CINDE,
these changes have made Costa Rica the third largest
per capita exporter in Latin America, after Chile
and Venezuela.
Looking at the number of countries to which Costa
Rica exports, the number has grown from 64 in 1986
to 135 in 2001.
While the number of export markets has doubled, the
number of export products has actually tripled. In
1996 the country exported 395 products, compared to
3300 today! The overall number of companies engaged
in export has risen from 1540 in 1997 to 1680 companies
today.
Government efforts have paid off, as the nation’s
shift in exports has been dramatic. In 1963, hi-tech
represented 13% of exports. The corresponding figure
today is 56%. Moreover, forty years ago 70% of exports
came from three products: sugar, bananas and coffee.
Today these commodities account for only 13% of Costa
Rican exports. Even if world market prices for those
products remain very low the Costa Rican economy is
no longer so reliant upon them.
According to Kissling, “We want to move towards
changing the concept of furniture from a piece of
furniture to a piece of art. Basically this is because,
if we want to increase the standard of living here,
we have to use more of our brains on what we do.”
The shift has not only meant changing the composition
of exports, moving from traditional products - coffee,
bananas, sugar, etc. - where Costa Rica is an expert,
to non-traditional industrial products, such as textiles,
foods, machines, to mention only a few. It has also
meant that Costa Rica has been adding value to traditional
products. For example, if it used to export tropical
fruits, it is now exporting tropical fruit marmalades
and hot sauces. According to Kissling, “We have
been doing that for the last 15 years, and I think
it has put us in a very important and interesting
position to compete at an international level.”
Procomer also has a program, Pyme Exporta, which seeks
to assist companies in creating more capacity and
to help them develop value-added products. The program
helps them through training, enabling them to negotiate
and conduct market intelligence studies.
Given that Costa Rica is at the stage where a sizable
industrial and agricultural base already exists, what
is needed now is a combination of different elements
that will enable companies to compete whenever a new
market opens up.
All the main elements for any investor and successful
exportation are in place in Costa Rica-- political,
legal, tax stability, as well as security and comfort.
Where is, then, the future challenge, and what is
the best way for Costa Rica to keep up with globalization?
The nation is full of fresh, innovative ideas, but
the world still often refers to it as a Banana and
Coffee Republic.
According to Anabel Gonzalez, the former general director
of CINDE and now responsible for free trade negotiations
at the Ministry of Foreign Trade, Costa Rica is not
a country whose main attraction is cheap labor. Therefore,
the way to move forward and become an equal contributor
in the global market is to continue moving towards
more sophisticated activities. According to Gonzalez
“If you think of Costa Rica in fifteen years,
you would like to see a country where the proportion
of agriculture in the GDP is less than 15%, which
is what it is now, and within agriculture, the focus
is on products where we have achieved a very high
productivity per year, like for example melons and
plants.”
It’s difficult to envision what will happen in
a country experiencing a growth rate as high as that
of Costa Rica. And it could even be detrimental, as
a country needs to be flexible enough to change course.
“We will probably continue producing bananas
in certain parts of the country. With coffee, we will
probably produce it only in certain parts of the country,
and we will specialize in gourmet coffee, because
it is going to niche markets,” says Gonzalez.
“We should be able to see this trend even in
one year from now.”
This past month, Procomer went to Chicago to participate
in a supermarket trade fair. Costa Rican tuna will
be displayed amongst a host of other food products.
The Costa Rican Chamber of Exports (CADEXCO) awarded
Sardimar, a tuna fish processing company, its Grand
Prize 2001 for being the top exporter of the year.
With regard to the textile industry, Procomer participated
in a fall fashion industry trade fair. Together with
Procomer, six companies promoted themselves as having
the necessary skills to produce high quality final
products.
Among the more interesting sectors is biotechnology.
Fernando Gutierrez, Vice Minister of Science and Technology,
believes this could be one of most important sectors
in Costa Rica’s future. “We could use our
plants and nature more for pharmaceutical purposes.
Many of these species we have here exist in the other
countries in the world, too, but Costa Rica’s
advantage is that, if not all, the majority of them
are here in one place,” said the Vice Minister.
Since Costa Rica has five percent of the world’s
biodiversity, the potential to cure any existing disease
in the world is amazing. A number of institutes are
conducting research in areas of biotechnology. Naturally,
this has high added value, and the research takes
a long time and can be costly. |
