Costa Rica Growth Down, Poverty
Up
Facing growing tensions over price hikes Costa Ricans learned that
the economic growth of their country will fall below the 2.2 percent
planned.
The Spanish language daily La Prensa Libre published the
announcement.
According to the president of the Banco Central de Costa Rica (BCCR),
Francisco de Paula Gutierrez, there will be a fall in the demand for
goods and services, direct foreign investments and domestic demand
including consumption and investments as a result of the
international situation.
He predicted that the banks were in danger due to client defaults
together with reductions and scarcity of credits that the citizens
and companies can receive from financial entities.
With little more than four million inhabitants, Costa Rica is no
exception regarding the impacts of the international crisis but the
neoliberal policies of the Oscar Arias government tend to sharpen
the problems, local specialists explained.
"Blind belief in the market god and its capacity of
self-regulation," seem prevalent, said the head of the Partido
Accion Ciudadana (PAC) and legislator, Elizabeth Fonseca.
According to this legislator the government grants privileges to
business over social needs.
Figures of the Ministerio de Planificación Nacional y Política
Económica (Ministry of National Planning and Economic Policy)
reveal that the number of homes considered below the poverty line
poor increased to over 219,700 representing 17.7 percent of all
families.
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