The Costa Rican government announced on Friday last week the details of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) purchase of US$300 million in Costa Rican government bonds in the Constitutional Chamber of the country’s Supreme Court. The government has been unwilling to provide detailed information in the case.
Costa Rican media last Saturday reported on the testimony in the Constitutional Chamber by the country’s minister of finance, Guillermo Zuniga.
Zuniga said at a press conference on Friday last week that China had bought Costa Rican 20-year government bonds worth US$150 million on Jan. 23 at an interest rate of 2 percent. No broker was involved and the Costa Rican government had paid no commission.
Zuniga said China would pay the remaining US$150 million in January next year. He said his government had not made the deal public at the request of the Chinese government.
Costa Rican media reporting on the deal said that the money would be supervised by Banco BTC SA, which was founded by Costa Rican Ambassador to China Antonio Burgues, who remains a shareholder in the bank.
Costa Rica severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan on June 7 last year after having established diplomatic relations with China on June 1.
Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) spokesman Henry Chen (陳銘政) said yesterday : “The truth of why Costa Rica broke up with us has finally been revealed.”
“It just goes to show that if we had continued to engage in a hostile diplomatic race with Beijing, Taiwan would unquestionably have been crushed,” he said.
Chen said for the year 2008 to 2009, MOFA’s budget has been roughly earmarked at US$1 billion (NT$30 billion).
“There is no way that we would be able to allocate one-third of our annual budget on cementing ties with just one country,” he said.
“This goes to show that a modus vivendi is necessary so we can avoid playing this money game [with Beijing],” he said.
Additional reporting by Jenny W. Hsu
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