Remarks at Renewable Energies Forum

San José, Costa Rica

May 23, 2013

Remarks by Alvaro Cedeño Molinari, Ambassador of Costa Rica to Japan

Teófilo de la Torre, executive president, Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE)

René Castro Salazar, Minister of Environment and Energy (MINAE)

Yoshiharu Namiki, Japanese Ambassador to Costa Rica

Dear friends from Japan and Costa Rica,

The Chinchilla Administration has had a bold and audacious vision to embrace green growth as a domestic and foreign policy.

For Costa Rica, green growth represents a precious opportunity to showcase it worldwide as a unique model of regenerative development. In the last 30 years, this country has tripled its Gross National Product, and at the same time it has doubled its forest coverage, having a tremendously positive impact on both socioeconomic and ecological systems. This has enriched biodiversity, which offers multiple opportunities for bioinnovation and bioindustry, as well as ecological tourism, representing today one of the most important sources of employment and income.

Green growth also implies a renewable energy mandate, and that is the reason why we are here today.

After the worst tsunami in one thousand years, the Japanese nation has remarkably embraced green growth as the path to develop in this XXI Century, strongly promoting a low carbon economy, smart city technologies and of course, renewable energies.

During the last two years the Costa Rican Embassy in Japan has been following the principle of creating shared value by identifying innovation by opportunities based on mutual strengths and interests among both countries.

I am therefore honored to have participated at today’s event with eleven Japanese executives who are committed to create shared value with Costa Rica towards green growth. This pioneering effort on behalf of the Japanese public and private sectors showcases both our countries as a successful strategic partnership for the decades to come.

I would like to thank Minister Rene Castro and ICE president Teofilo de la Torre for their bold leadership; Toshiba, JBIC and the Japanese Embassy in San José for strengthening Costa Rican values and seeking development opportunities with Costa Rica; Banco Nacional and Banco de Costa Rica for their active engagement that has materialized a memorandum of understanding that will increase financing, investment and development in our country; a special thanks to the ICE and MINAE staff for their continuous efforts and very hard work to make this event possible; and last but no less important, all of you who responded to our invitation. We thank you and we hope you have gained valuable insights for your enterprises.

Thank you very much.