Costa Rica's commercial deficit dropped 36.4% during the first trimester of this year, thanks to a 34.1% increase in the country's income, Finance Minister Guillermo Zúñiga announced yesterday.

At the end of March, the commercial deficit registered $91.7 million, a 36.4% drop from the same time last year, when it registered $144 million.

The government's income during the first three months of the year was $927 million, 34.1% more than the $691.6 million reported last year, while its expenses, including interest on debt, registered $1 billion, up from the $836 million registered during March 2006.

Zúñiga said he is satisfied with these numbers, but lamented that interest on the country's $351 million debt have “absorbed” the government's work to increase income through aggressive tax collection and promoting bills that would create new taxes, he said.

In other economic news, Foreign Trade Minister Marco Vinicio Ruiz reported yesterday on Costa Rica's exports, applauding a 13% increase during the first three months of this year compared to last year.

The country exported $2.2 billion during the first trimester, a 13.2% increase over the same period last year. Businesses in free-trade zones exported $1.1 billion during this time period, a 15.6% increase over last year, while the agricultural sector exported 6% more than last year.

The country's strongest export remains electronic parts for microprocessors, which brought in $499 million during the first three months of the year, a 29.4% growth over last year, followed by bananas, whose sales increased 5.6% over last year, grossing $153 million.