SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (Reuters) - Costa Rican inflation in 2008 will likely exceed the central bank's 9 percent target because of international food and energy prices, President Oscar Arias told Reuters on Wednesday.
"It will be difficult for us to have an inflation rate of 8 or 9 percent as we had planned in the monetary program," he told the Reuters Latin America Investment Summit.
Inflation across Latin America has jumped over the past few months as rapidly developing economies like India and China boost global demand for food and commodities.
Costa Rica had hoped to pull inflation down from 10.8 percent last year.
Meanwhile, an expected economic downturn in the United States, Costa Rica's top trading partner, is seen putting a damper on growth across Central America.
"As a small economy that depends highly on what happens in the United States, we're certainly going to be affected a bit," Arias said.
Costa Rica's central bank has said it expects the economy to grow 3.8 percent this year, down from 6.8 percent in 2007.
(For summit blog: summitnotebook.reuters.com/)
(Reporting by John McPhaul and Brian Harris; Editing by Braden Reddall)
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