According to the results of the Annual Report: “Costa Rica Importa”, prepared by the Commercial Intelligence platform of the Chamber of Foreign Trade (Crecex), in recent years, Costa Rican imports from Asia show a sustained growth and in many cases a substitution of imports that were previously made from the United States and Central America.
The three most recent annual intelligence reports of the import sector show there has been a steady increase in the participation of the Asian region. For 2016, the region showed a growth of 9% on imported value and 17% on imported volume, compared to the amounts recorded in 2015.
Additionally, the administrative region of Hong Kong, India and Indonesia, are the ones with the greatest increase in purchases from that region of the world, with an increase of 82%, 33% and 139%, respectively, over the imported value, compared to the year 2015.
South America had a growth of 5% in imported value and 17% on volume imported for 2016 compared to 2015, with the agricultural sector accounting for 12% of the total imported from this region. Countries such as Brazil, Peru, Uruguay and Paraguay are the ones that show the greatest dynamism, mainly due to the increase in imports of avocados, due to the commercial blockade that is maintained with avocado imports from Mexico.
The transport sector, in 2016, had a growth of 16% over the imported value, registering imports for $ 1,531 million, placing itself for the second consecutive year as the main importing sector of the country, removing the Petrochemical Sector that occupied that position in previous years.
Once all the items were added, during 2016 7,523 varieties of different tariff items were imported, from 211 different origins, headed by the United States with a 31% market share, with imports of $4,458 million.
The second place belongs to China with imports for $ 1,945 million, followed by Mexico in third place with $ 1,018 million. According to Crecex, in the past few years these countries have become the main commercial partners for Costa Rica, a position reinforced by the signed free trade agreements.