Costa Rica has been of the countries most affected by the changes in the prices of internationally-traded products recorded in recent years. Many of the goods the nation imports, such as oil, building materials, and food products have increased much more than those she exports. For Costa Ricans, this deterioration of what is known as terms of trade –the ratio of the price a country receives for its export commodities to the price it pays for its import commodities– implies impoverishment, because their income loses purchasing power and they are increasingly less able to meet their basic needs. According to the Economic Commission for Central America and the Caribbean, Costa Rica has suffered a 25-percent deterioration between 1999 and the present, the fourth worst country in that direction in the region, after Nicaragua, Honduras, and Haiti, the three poorest of the 19 nations evaluated.
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