The industry stamps of small countries often tell much. Often what was important at the time of the stamp is just gone. Here we find an industry with some staying power. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist,
It is not the easiest to picture a vegetable oil processing plant in a good light. This one even has puffing smoke stacks. De La Rue did a pretty good job though. The hilltop location give a certain monastery feel.
Todays stamp is issue C227, a 5 Centimos airmail stamp issued by Costa Rica in 1954. It was a 20 stamp issue that came out over 5 years that showed off industry of Costa Rica. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether used or unused.
Traditionally the biggest business in Costa Rica is agriculture. This is still the case as far as number of people employed, but in terms of gross national product it has fallen behind tourism. While being by far the most prosperous Central American country, there is still a very real issue of haves and have nots. This has been exacerbated by the influx of North American retires. Such activity looks great for GNP and also adds impetus to environmental enforcement. For example, recently Costa Rica banned commercial fishing fleets from both of their oceans but still allows sport fishing in their rivers to appease the retirees. It should not be surprising that the unemployment rate among locals is near 10 percent even before Covid.
Costa Rica has attempted to counteract this trend. They have opened free trade zones to attract foreign owned industry. Costa Rica seemed to attract a crown jewel when Intel built a chip manufacturing plant. It employed 5000 well paid employees and the output of the plant was 25 percent of exports of Costa Rica and 4.9 percent of GDP. In 2014, Intel anounced that they were ending manufacturing at the barely ten year old plant in Costa Rica and laying off over half the staff. The current largest employer in the free trade zones is Amazon.com, but most of their jobs are lower pay, lower skill, warehouse jobs.
One industry that has proved more consistent is vegetable oil. It is still locally made and owned. It sells under the brand En Su Punto in 10+ countries. I can’t confirm that they still operate out of the factory shown on the stamp. Their website, facing the same problem no doubt as the stamp designer, would rather show you their product.
Well my drink is empty, so please come back tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.