The German Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development will visit Costa Rica this week to talk environmental conservation, renewable energy and continued cooperation with Costa Rican officials.
Minister Dirk Niebel will arrive in Costa Rica on Wednesday for three days of meetings with the country’s politicians including chats with President Laura Chinchilla, Environment Minister René Castro and Foreign Minister Enrique Castillo. Niebel’s Costa Rica trip is a part of a tour of Germany’s Latin American trade partners that also includes Chile.
“Costa Rica plays a fundamental role in the development of the region, in regional and international programs of cooperation that Germany supports, specifically in the area of environmental conservation.” said German Ambassador Ernst Martens at a press conference Monday.
Martens said Niebel will arrive with a cohort of 27 people including representatives of German renewable energy and sustainable tourism businesses.
Bilateral trade between Costa Rica and Germany reached $382 million in 2010. Germans are major buyers of Costa Rican coffee and pineapples and approximately 50,000 German tourists visited Costa Rica in 2010.
