126 Of the 180 Suspected Cases of Swine Flu
Discarded
Arias Delivers Third and Final Annual
Report, Vows To Fight To The End
No
Reality in "Oscarlandia"
The Estimated 8.500
Sex Social Workers Absent From May Day
Activities
Costa Rica Bananas Back
On Track
No Labour Day Break
For Chinese Workers Of On New Stadium
Costa Rica Bananas
Back On Track
Costa Rica will look to its banana industry
to support its economy as the country
recovers from flooding and a
recession-related hit on tourism.
The Costa Rican banana market, worth $674.2
million (£456.6m) in global exports, was hit
hard by drought in the first half of 2008
and then floods in November, severely
affecting volume.
The National Banana Corporation, Corbana,
said it expected volumes to return to
traditional levels in 2010 with exports this
year down an estimated six to eight million
boxes on the 103.1m produced in 2008, itself
a 9.3 per cent fall on 2007’s export volume.
Jorge Sauma, ceo of Corbana, told a
delegation of European journalists last
week: “We are trying very hard to recover
from this. It is important that we have very
high yields as it is the only way to stay
competitive against the ACP countries, which
have lower wages.
“With the fall in tourism, the banana
industry in Costa Rica has become even more
important, as 40,000 people directly rely on
it, and 100,000 indirectly.
“We have around 44,000 hectares of banana
production which is down from around
52,000ha because of the financial crisis in
the world."
Corbana has taken a number of steps to
arrest the slide in production. Following an
inventory of all its plantations, it issued
loans from an $8m fund and helped to
implement flood defences backed by the
government.
Last year, the EU became the country’s
largest market with 49.9 per cent of global
exports, with the US representing 45.6 per
cent of the remainder. The UK is Cost Rica’s
biggest single country market, claiming 25.7
per cent of the market share.
|
|
|
|
|
