Trade and economic cooperation between China and Costa Rica enjoy a rosy outlook as the two countries are strongly complementary in economic development, a senior Chinese trade official said on Sunday.
"China boasts a huge market, cost-effective products and a growing number of companies that wish to invest overseas," said Jiang Zengwei, vice minister of commerce, during a seminar on investment in Costa Rica on the sideline of the 11th China International Fair for Investment and Trade that opened Saturday in Xiamen.
Costa Rica, on the other hand, enjoys political stability, rich human resources, lower tariffs as well as preferential policies towards investors, he said.
Jiang said investment and cooperation between China and Costa Rica enjoy massive potential for expansion as the two countries established diplomatic ties only three months ago.
China and Costa Rica, a country with 4.2 million people, set up diplomatic ties at ambassadorial level on June 1, after the central American country agreed to break official ties with China's province of Taiwan.
During the seminar, Marco Vinicio Ruiz, Costa Rica's minister of foreign trade, briefed Chinese businesses on his country's investment environment and a series of infrastructure construction projects.
He said Costa Rica's economy lies largely on foreign trade and the high-tech industry, and China is its second largest trade partner.
By the end of June, China had just one investment project in Costa Rica, a hotel involving US$300,000 of investment from the Chinese side, according to Ministry of Commerce.
It said Costa Rica had invested in 30 projects in China by the end of June 2006, involving US$111 million of contractual investment and US$32.47 million of actual investment. Most of the investment went to the pharmaceutical, telecommunications and tourism sectors.
Investment promotion bureaus of the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding on Sunday, agreeing to further cooperation and facilitate more investment projects.
China and Costa Rica posted US$1.56 billion of bilateral trade in the first seven months of this year, up 61.3 percent year-on-year.
The Chinese side predicted trade for the whole of 2007 will reach US$3 billion, up from US$2.16 billion reported last year.
Businesses from the two sides struck US$16 million of deals during a Chinese commodities fair in Costa Rica's capital San Jose on August 22-25.
(Xinhua News Agency September 10 2007)
