Tico coffee, a specific candy or a cookie brand: These are some of the Costa Rican products that Ticos living abroad frequently request from relatives or friends. So the Foreign Trade Promotion Office is using that loyalty to promote the opening of new export markets for local products.
Promotion strategies in recent months are attracting Chilean buyers of healthy, zero-calorie, gluten-free, organic and environmentally friendly Tico products, according to Costa Rica’s Foreign Trade Promotion Office (PROCOMER).
Many people in Costa Rica's rural areas still use heavy, wood-burning stoves. But they're now becoming a luxury item for preparing meals on special occasions, as well as a collector's item for vintage decoration.
Costa Rica's third country organic accreditation with EU countries allowed local organic producers to send coffee for the first time to Estonia last year, while pineapple producers sold for the first time to France and Switzerland.
Exports of all goods from the country dropped from $2.8 billion in the first quarter of 2014 to $2.3 billion this year, according to the latest report. The exit of technology giant Intel still is the main factor negatively affecting export figures.
Medical devices now lead national exports and showed a considerable 49.5 percent growth in the first two months of 2015 compared to the same time period last year.
A group of 11 Costa Rican companies from the export sector of plants, flowers and foliage this week are displaying their products at the International Trade Fair for Plants (IPM) in Essen, Germany.
