The Importance of Food Safety for Costa Rica's Exports (Advantages and Disadvantages)
In contrast to earlier times when food safety was only beginning to emerge as a topic, it has now become a key item on a country's competitiveness agenda, at both national and international level. Its importance is confirmed by the existence of consumers who are increasingly demanding in terms of product quality and the growing concern of States to safeguard the health of their citizens.
The subject is no less important for foreign trade. In the face of an increasing volume and range of imported and exported goods on national and international markets, as a result of trade liberalization, the assurance that a food will not cause harm if prepared and consumed appropriately assumes crucial importance.
There are international barriers associated with the seal of food safety which logically presents a problem of non-tariff barrier to trade. However, from a different perspective, this aspect can also be viewed as an opportunity for exports. Hence the importance of having a national food safety system that can enhance the opportunities and minimize the barriers to trade.
World trade in fresh and processed foods is moving upwards. Increasingly stringent food safety measures are therefore being introduced each day, not only for products for export but also for those for the domestic market, for it is not a question of the international markets getting the better products at the expense of the local market. Under such a situation, agriculture and the food industry have to rapidly adapt to new technologies to be competitive and meet the requirements.
Costa Rica's food industry exports currently represent 10 percent1 of the total value of its exported goods. It exports some 270 food-industry products2 that need to meet the safety requirements of the client markets. These products include processed foods, sugar, fruit puree and pulp, palm oil, fruit juice and concentrate, processed and canned fish, palm hearts, alcohol, bakery products, sauces and assorted food products.
At the same time, its exports of fresh produce account for slightly more than 20 percent of the total value of its exports, including banana, coffee, pineapple, melon, cassava, malanga, chayote, plantain, yam, mango and other fruit. These products also have to comply with safety standards.
Agricultural produce and food-industry products for export represent approximately 30 percent of the total value of exports, which indicates the importance of these sectors and the need to maintain and improve their competitiveness by incorporating food safety assurance systems.
Costa Rica has undoubtedly made progress in improving its food safety system, but this still needs to be reinforced not only to protect people's health but also to be competitive on international and the national markets.
My examples of agricultural produce and food-industry products indicate that compliance with international food safety standards has opened up markets for Costa Rica's fresh and processed food products, which translates into increased earnings for an exporting country such as ours.
Consolidating and increasing this export capacity from a food safety perspective does however present challenges. Hence the need to bolster the technical capacity of national experts and to enhance the infrastructure in order to help producers to meet the country's obligation to supply products that present no risk to public health.
At the same time, we need to increase awareness of the importance of food quality and safety not only among consumers and producers, but also among policy-makers and those taking decisions.
This raising of awareness is important if a country's producers (for the domestic and export markets) are to seize the opportunities associated with food safety. But at the same time, they need to draw attention to instances where food safety concerns and nutritional fears are not based on scientific evidence so that we avoid creating unnecessary barriers to trade.
Clearly, access to food export markets depends not only on the elimination of trade barriers but also on the ability of exporting countries to meet the regulatory requirements of importing countries, especially at a time of heightened international concern to tighten plant and animal health mechanisms because of “mad cow” and other diseases, and more recently “avian flu”.
These are all reasons why the efforts deployed by organizations such as FAO and WHO in activities such as that which brings us together today are of vital importance for raising our capacity to supply safe products that will help protect consumer health and for ensuring the transparency of trade practices, whether production be for the domestic or for the international market.
Thank you.
1 Preliminary data in October 2005 provided by PROCOMER.
2 Source: COMEX. Product refers to each 10-digit tariff line.
