COSTA RICA OPTIMISTIC ABOUT REFORMING ICO

  Costa Rica's economy minister said he
  sees new hope for winning changes in the International Coffee
  Organisation system of export quotas.
      Minister Luis Diego Escalante, who serves as president of
  the Costa Rican Coffee Institute, said he was hopeful because
  of the support offered Costa Rica and other smaller producing-
  nations by such major consumers as the United States, Britain
  and the Netherlands at last week's ICO meeting in london.
      Escalante told a news conference here he "carried the weight
  of the negotiations" at the meeting by calling for larger export
  quotas for the smaller coffee-growing nations.
      Costa rica is insisting, Escalante said, on a new quota
  system based on a producing nation's real export capacity, once
  it has satisfied internal demand.
      "There are countries such as our own whose sales
  possibilities are close to or above 100 pct of their current
  quotas," Escalante said.
      At the same time, there are countries favoured by the
  current system that have been assigned quotas far above their
  export potential, he said.
      The current ICO quota system is "unfair and autocratic,"
  Escalante said.
      Escalante attributed the nosedive in international coffee
  prices over the last week to speculation rather than real
  matters of supply and demand.
      "Be careful," he warned, "there's not as much coffee in the
  world as they say. What there is are bags of sawdust."
  

