Gasoline Goes Up; Eggs Come Down
Costa Rica awoke this morning to a record high in gasoline prices.

As announced last week, the Autoridad Reguladora de Servicios Públicos (Aresep) approved the latest request by the Refinadora Costarrincense de Petroleo (Recope) after more than a month being shelved waiting on the appointment of a new "regulador".

The price hike came into effect this morning after it was published in the official government publication, La Gaceta.

The price for a litre of super gasoline jumped to ¢556 colones (us$1.09) from yesterday's ¢526. Regular jumped to ¢534 from ¢504 (us$0.98) and diesel went from ¢344 to ¢380 colones (u$0.74) per litre.

What the increase means is that a US gallon of super now costs us$4.12 (a Canadian gallon costs us$4.95); a US gallon of regular costs us$3.70 (a Canadian gallon is us$4.45); and, a US gallon of diesel costs us$2.80 (a Canadian gallon is us$3.60)

In comparison, the price of a litre of regular gasoline in neighbouring Nicaragua is us$0.69 and in Panama is us$0.58, making Costa Rica the country with the highest gasoline prices in the region.

In Venezuela, a gallon or regular gasoline costs only 12 cents.


On the positive side, the price of eggs dropped up to ¢130 colones per kilo.

Alejandro Hernández, director of the Cámara Nacional de Avicultores, explained that this is the season where more fruits are consumed than eggs and it forces the price of eggs to drop.

However, speculation is that reduction is due to the suspension of exports of poultry products to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador as those countries closed their borders to Costa Rican chickens and eggs following an outbreak of laringotraqueítis, an infectious disease that was discovered in a farm in la Las Mercedes de Guácimo, Limón.

Francisco Arias, corporate relations director at Pipasa, said that that market will soon re-open as the Limón case was an isolated incident and there is no risk to consumers of Costa Rican chicken products.

Hernández said that the price reduction is a direct cause of egg distributors paying up to ¢300 colones less per kilo of eggs to producers and that reduction is passed on to consumers at the retail level.