Economy of Costa Rica

The monetary unit is the colonist.

The Café offered a relative prosperity to the Costa Rica, it is mainly cultivated in the center of the country on the plates exchange. The production was approximately 145.000 tons of coffee per annum in 1995.

The Banane is the principal culture of the country, cultivated on the coast of the Caribbean (Limón) in vast plantations. The country is the second world exporter. The majority of plantings of bananas are in Limon, one of the seven provinces of Costa Rica. Puerto Limon is the most important port of Costa Rica.

In Costa Rica, the banana is a vital production . And for the multinationals north-amécaines, which since more than one century exert a quasi-monopoly there, it is at the same time a fabulous gold mine and a means of political pressure: nonglad to decide size and taste of the fruits, the large companies worry particularly about the shape of the government. Thus the oldest Latin-American democracy has it great difficulty not to be simply a banana republic. One finds in Costa Rica two varieties of bananas. The standardized banana, reserved for export; and the local banana, of irregular and little sweetened form. For the families of peasants, it is the basic food: jumped, roast, stuffed with meat or vegetables, it enters the clothes industry of the majority of the meals. The bananeraires are established in the hottest areas and wettest of the country, on the east coast, in particular. It reigns there an unhealthy climate, favourable with the tropical diseases, in particular the Malaria. But the exemption from payment of the residences, summary huts placed at their disposal on the large plantations, encourages the workmen and their family to be settled there. The bananas are conveyed since the most moved back corners of the plantations by cable cars with human traction. At the station of packing, they are cleaned, bathed, douchées and treated against the moulds. A universe where only the comptablity counts and in which the Bananero S withdrawn in their individual pieces do not have their place. The large banana companies do not badinent with the standards of marketing. With the least defect, the bananas finish with the discharge. Those which satisfy the criteria of size, form and aspect are dispatched, duly packed up, on board special boats where they will travel inside air-conditioned holds. The bananeros are among the workers best rénumérés of the country.

The ports of Quepos and Golfito were built for the United Fruit Company (firm American) and intended for the export of banana. In spite of its spectacular results, the banana production remains of colonial type and does not involve any job creation or of processing industry.

The country also exports in smaller quantity of the Ananas, the Cacao and the Canne to sugar.

The Corn, the Rice, the Vegetable S, the Tobacco and the Coton are cultivated in all the country, in more modest quantities.

Computing industry and electronics as well as the centers of phone calls (cal centers) have become for a few years an important source of incomes for the country.

Costa Rica received in 2005 more than 1,6 million tourists (country more visited of all the Central America) and exports reach the 6,9 billion dollars.

External bonds

CambioDelDolar.com - as the ratio of exchange varies from one bank to another (some time much), this site has the rates of purchase and sale for each financial institution authorized to carry on its activities in Costa Rica.

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