FTA with Colombia Doesn’t Convince Costa Rican Employers

In light of an announcement by the Ministry of Foreign Trade to explore the possibility of an FTA with Colombia in 2012, Costa Rican business chambers are opposed to the move and warned against what they believe would be negative consequences of such an agreement for the local industry.

Mario Montero, executive vice president of the Costa Rican Chamber of Food Industry (CACI in Spanish), said that Colombia is just around the corner, unlike Chile and China can therefore deliver products at very good prices to Costa Rica. "In Colombia there is everything," he said, in an article in Nacion.com. "The access conditions for Colombian products here are easy, via distribution channels, the opposite is happening there with us." Another leader, Juan Ramon Rivera, Senior Vice President of the Chamber of Industries of Costa Rica (ICRC in Spanish) warned that the Colombian economy is not complementary to the national one, but fully competitive, producing the same items.

The trade balance is in deficit to Costa Rica. In 2010, the country exported $51.5 million worth of products to Colombia, while imports amounted to $500 million, according to the Foreign Trade Promoter (Procomer).

Source: Nacion.com

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