Skip to footer

Is Costa Rica’s new president less eager to sign trade pacts?

President Solís was inaugurated the same week his predecessor Chinchilla signed a free-trade agreement with Colombia. He's skeptical such pacts are the best way to draw investment to Costa Rica.

|
Juan Carlos Ulate/Reuters
Costa Rica's President Luis Guillermo Solis addresses the audience during his swearing-in ceremony in San Jose May 8.

Costa Rica’s drive to sign new free-trade agreements appears to be meeting the end of the road with the election of a new president.

President Luis Guillermo Solís, who was inaugurated the same week that his predecessor Laura Chinchilla signed a free-trade agreement with Colombia, has expressed skepticism that such pacts are the best way to attract investment to the Central American nation. Before being sworn into office Thursday (May 8), Mr. Solís had asked Ms. Chinchilla to ease back on signing new free-trade agreements, notes our correspondent in San José.

“For the former president, these free-trade and regional trade agreements were a big priority,” our correspondent says. Ms. “Chinchilla’s administration framed it like Costa Rica only has an economic future if it’s part of regional free-trade agreements.”

Chinchilla signed the agreement with Colombia last Monday (May 5), bringing Costa Rica closer to full integration with the Pacific Alliance bloc made up of Colombia, Chile, Mexico, and Peru – all of whom now enjoy trade pacts with Costa Rica.

During her four-year tenure, Chinchilla also signed agreements with the European Free Trade Association in March, the European Union in October 2013, Singapore in July 2013, and Peru in June 2013. The tie-up with the European Free Trade Association – which comprises Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland – is expected to benefit Costa Rica’s agricultural sector, especially coffee, bananas, pineapple, and palm oil. The agreement is aimed at attracting foreign direct investment in tandem.

Solís, however, has questioned where this road leads.... For the rest of the story, continue reading at our new business publication Monitor Global Outlook.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Is Costa Rica’s new president less eager to sign trade pacts?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2014/0513/Is-Costa-Rica-s-new-president-less-eager-to-sign-trade-pacts
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe