Export growth slowed in 2007 as a result of weaker activity in industrial and agricultural exports. Costa Rica exported $9.34 billion worth of goods in 2007, up 14% from 2006.

Growth from 2005 to 2006 was 17%.

The slowdown in growth, coupled with a looming recession in the United States, Costa Rica's largest trading partner, makes it increasingly unlikely that Costa Rica will meet President Oscar Arias' ambitious goal of $16 billion in exports by the end of his term in 2010.

“We're seeing a complicated outlook for some sectors,” said Foreign Trade Minister Marco Ruíz on the release of the 2007 export numbers.

Industrial exports marked slower than average growth, at 13%. Exports like electronics, medical equipment, textiles and plastics make up 78% of the country's total exports by value.

Electronics, medical equipment, machined goods and paper goods marking above-average gains, but those gains were tempered by single-digit growth in plastics and chemical exports, while textile exports shrank 10%, to $501.7 million.

Likewise, agricultural exports, which make up 20% of the total, grew only 9.2%, with pineapple showing characteristically strong 12.8% growth and banana exports growing only by 8.3%.

Bright spots included processed food exports, which went up 33% to almost the $1 billion mark, and livestock and fish exports, which recovered from negative growth in 2006 to post an 8.1% gain in 2007, with $186.67 million in exports for the year.