QCOSTARICA – Costa Ricans are sixth in Latin America who can buy more fuel with the average salary they earn, reveals the Gasoline Index 2021, prepared by the specialized firm Picodi.
The company uses as a reference an average monthly salary of ¢468,000 (US$768) and an average price for fuels of ¢658 per liter (US$1.08).
This results in a total of 711 liters, that is, the amount of fuel that can be purchased in Costa Rica with an average salary.
The study also indicates that the fluctuations in the price of gasoline in the country caused an increase of 9.1% in the average cost of the product, during the first half of 2021, compared to the same period in 2020.
Costa Rica is far from Argentina, where the price of fuel increased by more than 45% year-on-year, and is also the Central American country where the cost of gasoline rose the least from one year to the next.
The opposite trend was only observed in Ecuador and Colombia, where average gasoline prices decreased slightly in year-on-year terms.
In terms of purchasing power, Cuba and Venezuela are at the bottom, because, although they dispense cheap gasoline, the average salary is equivalent to 26 liters and 230 liters of fuel, respectively.
The cheapest fuel is in Ecuador, where the price of a liter of gasoline is US$0.49 cents. At the other end of the list, with the highest price of gasoline, is Uruguay (US$1.35 per liter).
An increase in the average price of fuels is close, due to the uncertainty experienced by the global oil market and the movement of the exchange rate in the country, explained Daniel Suchar, an independent analyst.
This month (July), Costa Rica’s refinery (that doesn’t refine anything), the Recope requested the seventh consecutive price hike of fuels this year, a hike that is expected to take effect in the coming days.
The Recope is also expected to request next week, based on the current formula of fuel prices, before the regulatory agency the eight consecutive price hike.
Current prices of fuels in Costa Rica are ¢733 per liter of Super, ¢711 Regular and ¢593 Diesel, for an average of ¢ 679, ¢ 21 more than the cost used by Picodi in the study, which uses figures taken from the Globalpetrolprices site. com.
Top Ten
Costa Ricans are the sixth in Latin America who can buy more fuel with the average salary they earn (liters of gasoline they can buy).
- Puerto Rico (2,264)
- Ecuador (965)
- Bolivia (954)
- Panama (909)
- Chile (712)
6. Costa Rica (711) - Colombia (539)
- Mexico (523)
- Guatemala (517)
- Uruguay (444)
