Economy Good, Led by Finance, Insurance
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- Category: Business
- Published on Sunday, June 17 2012 01:54
- Written by Rod Hughes
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Economic indicators for 2012, which have been a shot in the arm for Costa Rican business, has been led by financial services and insurance, according to figures published by the Central Bank.
The bank has been publishing a series of upbeat reports showing economic growth has performed even better than was predicted earlier.
For example, this month showed a 7.2% gain over the same month a year ago, capping five months of steady increase. Financial service and insurance is up 8.4% in April over April the previous year.
This figure is five percentage points above the January, 2011, figure when the economy was sluggishly pulling out of the worldwide recession.
Central Bank expert Elvia Campos says the rise "is due to credit card commission receipts, exchange and arbitrage of foreign exchange and lines of credit." Credit through commercial banks is also healthy, she added.
In other sectors, manufacturing continued to show growth although it slowed a bit in April to 14%. But all sectors, even construction which caused much worry during the recovery, showed solid gains.
Construction, which had been slow to recover from the recession, showed a 4.4% growth in April. Figures are especially significant in employment in that sector since it employs some 367,000 persons.
These workers, when unemployed, find it hardest to find a place in other areas of the workforce because they are poorly educated and other unskilled in other sectors.
