Uncertainty pushes up dollar's value in Costa Rica

Nor many people in Costa Rica are prepared to predict what the value of the US dollar will stand against the local currency, the colón, at the end of the year, given growing demand for the dollar and a degree of uncertainty that is pushing up its market value.

Every Costa Rican has been getting to grasp with the existence of currency risk, which is inherent to the managed float system, where the market establishes the price and the central bank intervenes only to avoid abrupt volatility.

What is for sure, though, is that everyone had the opportunity to learn the lesson about currency risk some four years ago when the first upward movements of the dollar were first noted. Yesterday, the wholesale market in the dollar set a new record of 624.89 colones.