Qatar is the only country among the six Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) states to have an embassy in the Costa Rican capital of San Jose, Costa Rican Foreign Affairs Minister Manuel Antonio Gonzalez Sanz yesterday said. Similarly, Costa Rica’s only embassy in the Gulf region is in Qatar.
Speaking to Gulf Times yesterday, the visiting minister said his country has been making consistent efforts to improve its familiarity and visibility among the people of Qatar ever since Costa Rica set up its embassy in Doha in 2010. The minister is in Qatar  to attend the Doha Forum which started yesterday.
Costa Rica has the best human development Index of all countries of Central America and has diversified its economy considerably in the last two-and-a-half decades. “Earlier, we used to export only four products namely coffee, banana, meat and sugar. Now, we are exporting more than 4,000 products to over 160 countries across the world,” said Sanz while mentioning some of the strides made by Costa Rica in the last 25 years.
“We are looking forward to further investments from Qatari business houses in such sectors as hospitality and tourism,” said the Costa Rican Foreign minister.  “There are enormously favourable industry conditions in our country,” he said. 
The Foreign Affairs Minister from the Central American nation has no doubt that his country would be one of the most favourite tourist destinations for the people of Qatar once they learnt more about his  country’s exotic tourist destinations. 
“Though fewer people are travelling to Costa Rica from the Arab region these days, the country is  receiving a large number of visitors from the Far East, in particular China and many other places of that region,” said Sanz. China has invested in a number of projects and has helped Costa Rica build many industries as well.
In fact, Costa Rica was the first Central American country to recognise China and has extensive diplomatic relations with the Asian giant. 
While mentioning some of the strides made by Qatar to bolster relations with his country, Sanz said HH the Father Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani was the first leader from the Arab region to visit Costa Rica in 2010. Qatar opened its embassy in San Jose the next year.
Sanz is hopeful that the new Qatari ambassador to Costa Rica who took over only a few months ago would help their country succeed in drawing a number of visitors in coming years. “We have beaches, mountains, forests, luxury boats and whatever a tourist would like to savour. Not over, our weather conditions are remarkably good, especially for those wanting to escape from the severe summer of this region during the period between June and September”. The minister says the maximum temperatures in Costa Rica during the period was 27-28 degrees.
Considering the tourist potential of Costa Rica, British Airways recently started direct flights connecting London and San Jose. “Though until now no Gulf carrier is flying to Costa Rica, we are hopeful that connectivity between this region and San Jose would be established soon,” said Sanz. 
For Sanz, this is his second visit to Qatar. He had come here as his country’s foreign trade minister some 10 years ago.