OVERALL PROGRESS
Context
Costa Rica is a sovereign state organized as a republic made up of seven provinces. Located in Central America, it has a territory with a total area of 51,179 km2. On its borders, Nicaragua is located to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, Panama to the southeast and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It shares maritime borders with Nicaragua, Colombia, Panama and Ecuador. The population of Costa Rica is 5,213,362.
Costa Rica has a mixed economy, previously being primarily agricultural, there is now a robust service economy. Tourism is the fastest growing industry, and since the early 2000s, the country has generated more foreign exchange than agricultural exports. According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index, in 2018 Costa Rica ranked fourth among the strongest economies in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Traditional agricultural exports of bananas, sugar, cocoa and pineapple are of great importance, as well as flowers and micro-greens in recent years. There is a healthy export market to the U.S. for high quality Costa Rican coffee. The country also produces medical and surgical supplies and technology and electronic equipment, as well as a software development industry, financial services and outsourcing operations.
During 2015, the country experienced deflation, and in 2020, suffered losses due to the Covid-19 pandemic. During this time the economy decreased 4.1 per cent. Coming out of the pandemic, the economy recovered, and through vaccinating the population, the economy grew at 7.6 per cent in 2021 (according to the Central Bank of Costa Rica). In 2022, Costa Rica had the thirteenth highest inflation rate in Latin America at 5.8 per cent.
Costa Rica is the Latin American country with the highest number of immigrants in terms of percentage. According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), as of 2017, there were 414,148 immigrants living in Costa Rican, close to nine per cent of the total population. By mid-2017, a study carried out by the University of Costa Rica showed that his figure had increased to between 12 and 13 per cent.
The majority of immigrants enter the country for economic reasons or as political refugees. Currently the largest foreign communities are those from Nicaragua (70.9 per cent), Colombia (5 per cent), El Salvador (3.3 per cent) and the United States (three per cent). The remaining 17.8 per cent are made up of more than 150 other nationalities, with large communities of Panamanians (12,000), Cubans, Venezuelans (5,000 each), and Hondurans and Mexicans (3,000 each). For several years there has been an influx of Canadians, Europeans and Asians, who are attracted to Costa Rica’s general stability. Additionally, Costa Rica has the lowest emigration rate in Central America, with 143,465 Costa Ricans living abroad representing only 2.8 per cent of the population.
The country ranks very high in the human development classification according to the Human Development Index in 2021. According to the National Household Survey carried out in July 2020, the poverty level was at 26.2 per cent, which is equivalent to 419,783 households, roughly 20% more than the previous year, and is the highest since 1992 when the poverty level reached 29.4 per cent. Extreme poverty is at seven per cent, expecting to affect 112,987 households in 2020. Thirty per cent of Costa Ricans live in poverty (1,529,255 in 2020), which is a 6.1 per cent increase compared with 2019.