A strong recovery in construction modified the growth trend that the Costa Rican economy had been showing, which now reports 10 consecutive months of acceleration.
The monthly index of economic activity (IMAE) began to accelerate as of August last year and reported, as of May, a year-on-year variation of 4.4%, the Central Bank of Costa Rica (BCCR) reported Thursday afternoon.
The Bank explained that construction activity had a variation of 13.3% in May, compared to the same month of 2017.
The construction of private projects was the most dynamic with a year-on-year increase of 16%, compared to public that varied 0.1%.
According to the report, commercial and industrial projects were the most dynamic during the last year.
Henry Vargas, director of the Macroeconomic Statistics Department of the BCCR, explained that the most recent survey on private construction by the Bank was the one that showed the significant improvement of this sector.
Another one of the sectors that helped the economic acceleration was in manufacturing, in specific the greater demand for medical devices, that increased their inter-annual production of 28% to last May.
“The growth in medical devices was almost unprecedented, in the special regime (free zone) we are used to seeing variation rates of 15%, but not 28%,” explained Vargas.
The rest of the economic activities maintained a level of increase very similar to that of the last months.
The agricultural sector showed a variation of 4.1% in May; trade 3.3% and services 4.2%, according to the Central Bank.
Source (in Spanish): La Nacion
