Canada Seeks to Strengthen Commercial Ties with Costa Rica
June 30th, 2008 | by admin |After six years of having signed the Free Commerce Treaty, Costa Rica and Canada strengthen even more their commercial ties.
Relations have been extremely beneficial for both countries, proof of this being that exportations from Costa Rica to Canada have increased in 136% since the year 2002. Canada’s ambassador to Costa Rica has stated that his country places a great deal of emphasis in bilateral commerce. Over the past few years, an approximate investment of $463 million was directed towards Costa Rica by Canadian firms.
Currently, Canada has increased its demand for Costa Rican products such as pineapple, banana, organic products and flowers. One of the Canadian chain stores interested in increases their Costa Rican offer is Loblaws. There is also an “Exporters Mission” that will be carried out in September 2008 by Canadian firms. A meeting is also scheduled for next year in which the topic of services will be introduced into the treaty.
Several other Canadian companies have also opened offices in Costa Rica in the area of technology, services, tourism and real estate. Canadian companies in Costa Rica include Dessau-Soprin which will be in charge of supervising the works regarding the Electric Interconnection System for Central America. This project will promote energy interchange within the Central American region in order to lower energy costs.
The Berthier EBI Company has also opened offices in Costa Rica to work on methane gas extraction for energy production.
In the tourism sector, the Four Seasons Hotel has successfully run its property in Costa Rica’s Northern Pacific Region of Guanacaste while at the same time encouraging other large hotel chains to open hotels in Costa Rica.
