Costa Rica: Dry weather helps drag economic activity growth to an over five-year low in April
Annual economic growth in cyclically-adjusted terms slowed to 1.6% in April, which was down from March’s revised 1.8% growth (previously reported: +1.9% year-on-year) and represented the slowest expansion since November 2013.
Economic activity growth in April was hampered by a struggling agriculture sector, activity in which has fallen every month since September 2018 but which fell 3.9% in April—the fastest decrease in over a decade, specifically since February 2009. A prolonged spell of dry weather, partly due to the El Niño effect, is to blame for the agricultural sector’s sorrows. More positively, the ICT and financial sectors both posted strong activity growth in April.
In month-on-month terms adjusted for working days, economic activity increased 0.2% in April, as it did in March. Annual average growth slowed to 2.3% in April from 2.4% in March.