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Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elmer who wrote (138534)	7/2/2001 1:30:40 PM
From: Road Walker	Respond to of 186894

Sort of off topic but sort of interesting the impact Intel can have on a country: Costa Rica hopes frog's legs, coconuts spur trade By Daniel Brenes SAN JOSE, Costa Rica, July 2 (Reuters) - With global crises hammering its main exports of bananas, coffee and microprocessors, Costa Rica has turned to alternatives such as frog's legs and coconut milk to try and stem the sharp drop in export income this year. According to trade ministry data, Costa Rica's total exports fell 20.6 percent in the first five months compared with the year-ago period. But even as major exports dropped sharply, alternative exports grew 3 percent. ``If you exclude coffee, banana and microprocessors, we had 3 percent positive growth in exports in the first five months of the year, compared with the same period last year,'' Foreign Trade Minister Tomas Duenas told Reuters. In the January through May period, Costa Rica exported 2,826 products to 117 countries, including crafts, herbs, medications, pineapples, sugar, zinc roofing, fish, hair driers, tires, paper bags, animal hides, corn flour and chayote squashes. Duenas said Costa Rica's economy would be on the brink of collapse if it were not for diverse exports, as world prices are barely covering production costs for coffee, and bananas have been hit by uncertain markets and cold weather. A slump in the global computer chip market, meanwhile, has hurt exports from microchip maker Intel Corp. (NasdaqNM:INTC - news), which has a big Costa Rican operation. On Friday Costa Rica's central bank cut its forecast for 2001 economic growth to 0.5 percent from an earlier goal of 3.2 percent due to falling exports and high petroleum prices, and in spite of strong income from tourism. CHIPS PROMISE FADES Intel launched operations here in 1999, hugely boosting Costa Rica's exports that year and giving the country a trade surplus for the first time in many years. Costa Rican statistical reports started to put exports in two categories -- ``with Intel'' and ``without Intel'' -- since the company accounted for one third of exports. But Intel's exports began to tremble last year as demand for personal computers and the chips that go inside them weakened, and Costa Rica's economy went from booming 1999 growth of 8.9 percent to 1.4 percent in 2000. And the decline continues. In the first five months of 2001 Intel Costa Rica's exports fell 59 percent with sales of $353 million, compared with $853 million in the first five months of 2000. Duenas recently said Costa Rica has to reduce its dependence on Intel, as the company forecasts sales from this country of $830 million this year compared with $2.559 billion two years ago. The company, which employs half of the country's electrical engineers and electricians, has said it will not lay off people and blames the slowdown partly on the fact that one of its Costa Rican plants is temporarily off line for remodeling. BANANAS AND COFFEE Costa Rica, the second biggest banana producer in the world, saw exports of the fruit fall 12 percent in the first five months of the year, for a total $197 million in the period, partly due to low production because of cold weather. Duenas said it was still unclear whether a European Union pledge to open up access to Latin American banana imports starting July 1 would boost the local market. ``We are cautious about the beginning of the new European Union banana import regimen, which is so far only a theory,'' Duenas said. He added that while Costa Rica is working with other coffee producers on a series of measures to try to boost world coffee prices, there are no guarantees. Email this story - Most-emailed articles - Most-viewed articles