Back in the mid-1980s, when Costa Rica’s push towards export promotion started, one of
the key instruments for export promotion was a subsidy known as a Certificado de Ahorro
Tributario (CAT). This certificate was an asset tradable in the financial market which could
be used (by the recipient or the purchaser) as a credit at tax-payment time. Exporters
would be issued a CAT worth 15 percent of the gross value whenever they shipped a new
product (meaning anything but the original four traditional agricultural exports) to a new
market (meaning not Central America) .