The food industry reports monopolies in commodities like liquefied gas, high tariffs on imports and over-regulation.
The Costa Rican Chamber of Food Industry maintains strong opposition to the coming into effect of the Free Trade Agreement with China and asked the members of the Legislature to reject the signing of this and other trade agreements, until the country has solved a large number of structural weaknesses which hinder the development of competitiveness and innovation of Costa Rican companies.
The International Affairs Committee has approved the FTA with China, it is now being sent to the legislative branch.
If approved in Congress it would be the ninth Free Trade Agreement the country has signed.
Current treaties are with the United States, Canada, CARICOM, Chile, Mexico, Dominican Republic and Panama. Under negotiations are AACUE, China, Singapore and Peru. (According to the Ministry of Foreign Trade).
China granted Costa Rica immediate, tariff free access for the products which compose 99.6% of the value of Costa Rican exports (A Category).
For 0.10%, tariffs will be waived gradually (B Category), 0.19% in 10 years (C Category), 0.05% in 15 years (D Category), and just 0.01% will continue paying the current tariff.
In terms of number of products (tariff lines), 94% belong to categories A and B, 2% to the C Category, 1% to the D Category, and 3% to the E Category.
The chamber of Industries congratulates Laura Chinchilla as the next president of Costa Rica, and states the key issues for the sector.
“We welcome Laura Chinchilla, hoping her future Government improves job quantity and quality, always moving towards a more equal Costa Rica, but also more competitive and capable. We offer our support to work together in defining the road to place the country among the top generators of opportunities”, stated Juan María González, president of the Chamber of Commerce.
In this round both parties expect to close a number of chapters, including national treatment, food health measures, intellectual property and cooperation.
Fernando Ocampo, Costa Rica's chief negotiator, explained that they have already agreed on 90% of the Free Trade Agreement regulation.
Newspaper La Prensa Libre published additional comments by Ocampo: "We will focus our attention on a number of sensitive topics, including market access for some products considered crucial by Costa Rica as well as rules of origin considerations".
In the negotiations for a FTA, Costa Rica renounced to applying safeguard and anti-dumping measures to China.
Juan González, president of the Chamber of Industries of Costa Rica, renewed its criticism on how the Commerce Ministry (Comex) handled the negotiation process with China. According to Nacion.com, he remarked that: "long before sitting on the table, the negotiation was not balanced, and Comex accepted it.
Six negotiation rounds have already taken place, and the last one has been scheduled for February 2010.
Marco Vinicio Ruiz, Commerce Minister, explained that this administration wants to conclude the process before the end of President Oscar Arias' term on May 2010.
From Elsalvador.com: "'After the next round, the following step is the legal revision of the treaty, in order to sign it on March.
Sugar growers are confident they will obtain access to China's market.
This is the opinion of Edgar Herrera, executive director of the Sugar Cane League, who also said that they "... are used to be one of the last negotiated items in Free Trade Agreements, as it is usually a sensitive product".
Other categories also awaiting definition in the final negotiation stage are meat, coffee and banana.
The entrance of 25 Costa Rican products and 200 Chinese will be defined in the last negotiation round of the FTA between both countries.
Commerce ministers from both nations will take part in the last negotiation round of the Free Trade Agreement, in order to define if Costa Rican coffee and sugar can enter China, and if Chinese industrial products will enter Costa Rica.
The Chamber of Industries reduced from 28% to 25% the number of tariff lines to exclude from the free trade agreement.
6.600 tariff lines are included in the Free Trade Agreement negotiation between Costa Rica and China. The Costa Rican Chamber of Industries had initially requested excluding 28% of them, but has now lowered its request to 25%.
"What we've done is to sharper our pencils, as we are willing to cooperate with the negotiating team, specially for some lines which include a product and its parts. This does not mean that the chamber has altered its opposition to the negotiation scheme of this FTA", said Juan María González, president of the Chamber, according to Nacion.com.
This was announced in the fifth negotiation round for a Free Trade Agreement between both countries.
Costa Rica's negotiators requested immediate, tariff free entrance for chicken, beef and pork.
Fernando Ocampo, Costa Rican chief negotiator, remarked that "... getting access to China for our meats will be difficult, but we will insist. The country has potential for selling meat to the Chinese, and we want better conditions than their current offer".
The fifth negotiation round for a Free Trade Agreement between both countries starts this week.
Technical teams from both countries have scheduled an intense agenda for the week. They want to reach agreements in several chapters such as Technical Obstacles to Commerce, Health Measures, Cooperation, Dispute Settlement and Market Access.
In this encounter, the parties will also be able to discuss parallel agreements in labor and environmental matters.