Foreign companies account for more than 21 percent of the economy

The President of the Central Bank of Costa Rica (BCCR), Rodrigo Cupiro, emphasized that updating the national accounts is part of the entity’s ongoing efforts to provide statistics that adequately reflect the country’s economic situation to support decision-making in the public and private sectors.

In a press release posted on its website, the BCCR corrects that the published Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figure for 2017 (33.189 billion colons – nearly $ 55 billion) is now 34.344 billion colons – about $ 57 billion – an upward revision of 3.5 Percentage point.

Likewise, he adds, the participation of economic activities in GDP introduced changes, as agricultural and industrial activities lost the relative participation, and services increased their weight in total output.

It shows that agricultural activities amounted to 5.9 percent in the calculation of the gross domestic product in 2012, and with the new reference, it became 5.1 percent of GDP in 2017, while services increased from 40.2 to 44.5 percent between the two years mentioned.

With regard to the capital origin of foreign companies for global value chain services within private regulations, the BCCR update indicates that the United States leads with 42.5 percent of the total, followed by the Netherlands (16.7).

Regarding the destination of Costa Rica’s exports, the main destination is the United States, at 55 percent, followed by Europe (12).

mgt / ale