Caribbean & Central America - July 2017 (ISSN 1741-4458)

Costa Rica and China celebrated the tenth anniversary of the establishment of bilateral diplomatic relations on 30 June with the release of a commemorative stamp and postmark. But this symbol of closer cooperation was far less significant to Costa Rica than the substantial progress registered two days earlier when the country’s first shipment of pineapples arrived in China.

Costa Rica’s foreign minister, Manuel González, and China’s ambassador to Costa Rica, Tang Heng, together with post office officials, presented the stamp, which depicts the Great Wall of China and Costa Rica’s national flower, the Guaria Morada (Cattleya skinnier), a purple orchid. González said that the stamp, worth ₡1,400 (US$2.40), was a sign that bilateral relations went beyond trade and investment to cultural, academic, and sporting exchange. Heng said that it symbolised strength and beauty, a sign of increasingly “robust, durable, vigorous and enriching relations” between the two countries.

Two days before González unveiled the new stamp in San José, 15,000 12kg cases of fresh pineapple arrived in the port of Shanghai after 25 days at sea. Four companies – Upala Agrícola, Grupo Acón, Productos Agropecuarios Visa and Agromonte – provided the produce for the first shipment after China authorised the import of Costa Rican pineapples in March.

“The arrival of our first fruit to China is a source of pride for the pineapple sector…and will help drive Costa Rica’s social and economic development by opening the doors to one of the most important markets in the world,” the president of the national chamber of pineapple producers and exporters (Canapep), Abel Chaves, said.

China has increased its imports of pineapple by as much as 42% annually over the course of the last four years. China has authorised a total of 20 Costa Rican companies to export pineapples. There are 550 producers in Costa Rica and 43,000 hectares under cultivation, generating 30,000 jobs.

Pineapples are one of Costa Rica’s principal exports, above bananas and coffee, amounting to US$873m in 2016 (10% of total exports), according to Canapep. Of this figure, 53% goes to the US and 44% to the European Union (EU). Access to the Chinese market will soon shake these percentages up.

• Wasp swallowing

The nonchalant manner with which Costa Rica’s President Luis Guillermo Solís laughed off swallowing a wasp in a live news conference on 19 June gave him an unexpected social media boost for his fortitude. A video of the incident, which became by far the most widely disseminated news item on Costa Rica worldwide in June, shows Solís swallowing the wasp while responding to a reporter’s question, before insouciantly swigging some water and saying “I ate a wasp, it’s all protein”, and proceeding with the news conference in Paso Real in the north-western province of Puntarenas.