The Cámara de Comercio de Costa Rica (CCCR) – Costa Rica Chamber of Commerce – expects retail activities for this year (2017) to close with a relatively low growth of just 3.3%, driven in particular by sales of the subsectors of electronics, household products, food, beverages and tobacco, that showed a growth of greather than 4%.
For next year, 2018, the trade association projects a slight deceleration, a growth of only 2.8% over this year.
Alonso Elizondo, executive director of the Chamber, explained to Elfinancierocr.com that “… in these situations, the country’s economic conditions caused a deceleration in consumption. The most recent Consumer Confidence Index (CCI), measured by the University of Costa Rica, showed that Costa Rican consumer confidence continues to deteriorate and has been down for six months. In addition, contrary to the trend seen a few years ago, the proximity of payments of bonuses and end-of-year festivities did not cause a recovery effect.”
“… In the panorama for the next year they highlighted the participation of Costa Rica in the World Cup in Russia. “It is an event that will boost the economy, increasing consumption of food, clothing, footwear, and television screens, mainly. It is expected that this time there will be behavior similar to that seen during Brazil 2014′.”
The CCCR also announced four areas or priority work topics for the commercial sector facing the presidential hopefuls.
They are: informality, illicit trade, competitiveness and trade facilitation.
The Chamber developed a document, called “Política para el Sector Comercial” (Policy for the Commercial Sector), in which it exposes each one of those problems and their respective actions to solve them.
Source: elfinancierocr.com