This article originally appeared in Earth Island Journal . The retail giant is sourcing its Suli brand tuna from Mexican fishing fleets that harass and kill marine mammals, says nonprofit. Investigations by the nonprofit International Marine Mammal Project (IMMP) have revealed that Walmart Costa Rica stores are selling Walmart's brand of canned tuna that has been caught using fishing methods tha...

The Coalition for Development Initiatives (Cinde) identified these 10 emerging cities as having the greatest potential in Costa Rica to start attracting new types of investment and increase economic opportunities; they are San Carlos, Liberia, Carrillo, Orotina, Puntarenas, Perez Zeledón, Limón, Pococí, Siquirres, and Turrialba These cities are located in counties which have “a significant degr...

For all those spending the hot days at the Guanacaste beaches, perhaps you`d like to refresh yourself with a very cold beer; try something different, there´s a new craft beer called Guanaca by Guana Beer Company, made by local entrepreneurs, a Costa Rican couple who aside from wanting to create a unique flavor and successful business also want to ensure their company is environmentally responsible...

Panamanian franchise NaciónSushi will inaugurate its first restaurant in Costa Rica, located in Escazú Village, this Saturday, April 1st . With a strong investment of $600,000.00 USD this restaurant generated 25 direct jobs. The location is divided in five different spaces, Tail Lounge, Vietnam (bar and dining room), La Central and El Callejón Tokio, the open terrace completes the concept. O...

— Costa Rica’s exports grew 1.4 percent in 2016. The Statistics and Census Institute (INEC) reported this week on Costa Rica’s economic activity. Data from 2016 show an annual growth in exports of about 1.4 percent over 2015; rising from US$9.4 to US$9.5 billion. The country’s “non-traditional” exports, like medical devices and technology-related exports, are second only to fresh pineapple ...

The U.S. State Department’s annual International Narcotics Control Strategy Report came out this month. In the Money Laundering and Financial Crimes section, the report's second volume, Costa Rica is noted as being a favorable base for, "transnational criminal organizations to commit financial crimes due to its location and limited enforcement capability.” The report acknowledges that despite t...

This week the legislature approved in a second and final debate a cooperation agreement between the Republic of Costa Rica and Palestine that supports technical, economic, scientific and cultural cooperation activities, as reported in various Costa Rican media. The original agreement was signed in 2013, but faced some legal hurdles in the legislature. One vocal detractor, National Liberation...

Costa Rican Alvarez & Marin Corporation had confirmed the acquiring of the franchise Chuck E. Cheese’s some years back, a restaurant and entertainment center for children between the ages of 2-12, now the firm has confirmed that the first location is scheduled to open in October this year in Plaza Bratsi, Heredia. A total of three sites will open between 2017 and 2019 in the metropolitan ar...

A landmark conciliation agreement was reached this week in the community of Las Brisas, Upala in northern Costa Rica, said Edgar Araya, Broad Front Party (Frente Amplio) Legislator. A dialogue was held in the Community Hall of Las Brisas, Upala with local residents and representatives of the Las Brisas Agricultural Company to discuss the situation. "After many years of struggle, resistance a...

Finding the perfect wave has been called a mystic experience by surfers, many of whom comb the world’s beaches in search of unbeatable breaks. A recent study by Sydney University economist Sam Wills and Thomas McGregor of Oxford University, good waves are a valuable commodity. “We find that surfing waves contribute approximately US$50 billion to global economic activity each year,” said the res...

Costa Rica’s iconic dairy brand, Dos Pinos, just announced a new "helado" with a unique Costa Rican twist: Guayabita ice cream. But, don’t get too excited, the product still needs a month or so before it hits the shelves, said Dos Pinos. Since the company’s acquisition late last year of the Costa Rican candy company, Gallito, consumers have wondered what the buy-out might have in store as fa...

The Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Commerce (MEIC) have drafted a joint regulation to restrict the importation and sale of baby walkers in Costa Rica due to safety concerns, said the Health Ministry last week. Health Minister Fernando Llorca Castro said, “The initiative is driven by a large number of specialists at the National Children's Hospital … and is another ...

Florida Ice and Farm Company (Fifco) announced the commercialization in Costa Rica of a beer produced by the Costa Rican company in their U.S.A. subsidiary North American Breweries (NAB), Genesse is a lager beer with a 4.5% alcohol volume and has a light flavor. According to their press release, Genesee is one of the most important brands for their USA division, it was created 139 years ago in ...

Companies and individuals engaged in legal, real estate, agricultural, commercial and advisory services and consultancies are among the first 120 to be investigated by the Costa Rican tax administration, said the treasury department today. The names were identified in a publicly searchable database released last April during the Panama Papers scandal by the International Consortium of Investiga...

In light of the country’s growing deficit and difficulties in funding its public budget, Costa Rica’s treasury is working on a number of fronts to tighten up controls and increase accurate tax payments throughout the country. As part of this effort, they teamed up with the Agriculture and Livestock Ministry (MAG) to provide local governments with a tool that will allow them to enforce Law No. 9...

After clearing the constitutional court for any potential anomalies, Costa Rican legislators voted last week to approve the return of the annual corporate tax. Every year in July, those holding any type of S.A., limited liability corporation, including foreign companies, registered in the National Registry in Costa Rica must pay an annual fee for each corporation which ranges from about US$119 ...

Encuentra24.com is changing the way consumers in Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua find essential goods and services. The company's founders say their work to establish the digital platform is, "A story about vision, growth, perseverance and love for dreams, which we achieved with a clear business focus and a commitment to the countries where we operate." Back in 2005, when Encuentra24 founde...

The VI edition of ExpoPYME (small and medium size companies’ expo) has become the biggest fair of its kind in Central America, and this time it will be held within Costa Rica’s “Pro-Tempore” Presidency of the Central American Integration System (SICA), which the country will hold for a period of six months. Companies from Central America that are part of SICA will be participating in the Expo;...

The Board of Directors of the Costa Rican Fisheries and Aquaculture Institute (Incopesca) announced today they would limit granting permits for tuna fishing in 2017 as a provisional measure while they implement a new model to better regulate the activity. The Costa Rican Presidency announced that the management model for the tuna industry is being reformulated in order to achieve a better balan...

Traffic look bad, too hot to go out, or want to order in for a company meeting? Eateries and grocery stores are beating traffic to reach more people in their homes and offices with expanded express delivery services, reported the companies this week. Quiznos, with 31 outlets in Costa Rica, and Teriyaki, with seven, recently implemented express delivery in the areas surrounding Lindora near S...

Workers today in northern Costa Rica may make history with a first collective bargaining agreement on a pineapple farm. Costa Rica’s Labor Ministry is alert to a strike that initiated today at 3:00 a.m. by workers at the Santa Fe pineapple plantation in the far northern town of Los Chiles, said Gerald Valverde Santos, spokesman for the Private Sector Workers Union (Sitrasep, its acronym in Span...

During 2017, various companies plan to strengthen their relations with public institutions through public-private initiatives aimed at social and environmental problems. Since 2013, the Purdy Motor Group has teamed up with the Ministry of Public Education to develop a program called Purdy Cole, which aims to have employees of the company complete their studies. Purdy turns their meeting rooms i...

This week, the U.S. company DineEquity announced plans to open at least 10 International House of Pancakes (IHOP) brand restaurants in Costa Rica as part of its growth plan in Latin America, said Costa Rica’s business daily El Financiero. The brand’s international growth has mainly focused on increasing the number of restaurants in existing markets and, at the same time, entering three new mark...

Meet the most recent player on the Costa Rican taxi scene: Nova Transportes, a 100 percent locally owned business. The company is recruiting drivers, and also clients, on its Facebook page, and says it will accept car models from 2000 on. The newly formed Costa Rican company, Nova Transportes, is basing its model on Uber, and will begin operating in the second half of this year, said the com...

According to MarViva Foundation 80% of the residues in our oceans are plastic, and 8 million tons of plastic end up in the oceans every year, a group of concerned Costa Rican’s take it upon themselves to make a difference and help the environment by collecting the plastic that washes ashore in the different beaches, one of these groups is the Nicoya Peninsula Waterkeeper, a non-government organiza...

Costa Rican milk and dairy products cooperative Dos Pinos, will officially inaugurate its first ice-cream shop “La Estación” located in Escazú Village shopping center on March 10. The location at Escazú Village was strategically picked because it offers a combination of commercial space, residential space and offices, allowing them great exposure. With an investment of over $150,000.00 Dos P...

Imperial, “The beer of Costa Rica”, was declared the first beer globally to be water positive. Being “Water Positive” means having strategies in place to contribute with water conservation, “Imperial has managed to reduce in over 44% the consumption of water in its manufacturing process, with the help of investments in high technology equipment, and the establishment of good environmental pract...

Brussels, Mar 6 — Agriculture ministers from European Union member states on Monday approved a new organic produce deal with Chile, announced the European Council. In a press release, the EC said the deal — the first of this kind with a Latin American country — would allow the two parties to recognize their rules and control systems as equivalent, meaning organic produce from the EU could be so...

The sixth edition of the Latin American and Caribbean Outsourcing and Offshoring forum, Outsource2LAC 2017 will be held in San José, Costa Rica, March 15 and 16. Outsource2LAC is a business meeting organized by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Costa Rica Foreign Trade Promotion Office (PROCOMER), with the objective of sharing good practices and experiences of the sector, as wel...

Wall Street closed with strong gains on Wednesday with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), the main market indicator, rising 1.45 percent and ending the day above 21,000 for the first time in history in the wake of President Donald Trump's address to a joint session of Congress. All the major indexes moved into record territory, with the DJIA up 303.31 points to 21,115.55 at the close of t...

The number of individual cellphone subscribers across the globe is set to surpass 5 billion by mid-2017, according to a report presented at the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona on Monday. The figures, compiled by the cellphone industry representative GSM Association, suggested that the global number of cellphone users would hit 5.7 billion people by 2020. "Mobile is a global platform that ...

Microsoft will open an additional office in Costa Rica for this year and will need to hire 280 new employees. The new business center will provide service to clients in Central America, the Caribbean, Ecuador, Peru and other regional markets; with this it expects to create at least 280 new job positions. The company will be looking for workers to be part of one of two units that provides cr...

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) the citizens of Mexico and Costa Rica are the ones that work the longest hours. The OECD ran the statistics through its 38 member countries, from North and South America to Europe and Asia-Pacific. The study determines the average hours worked per year by taking the total number of hours worked per year and dividing i...

Over the past nine months the Burger King fast food chain has been resurrecting after its operations bottomed out in Costa Rica in October 2015, reported Costa Rica’s business daily El Financiero. The brand's new franchisee, Corporación JV de Centroamérica, has invested no less than US$2.5 million to open eight eateries in that time. Mario Jiménez, general manager of Burger King Costa Rica, ...

By Wendy Anders Exports from Panama fell for the third consecutive year in 2016, according to a recent report by Panama’s Comptroller General. Overall losses associated with the decline are estimated at 25 percent over the past three years, said officials, although a few exports did experience gains According to figures from the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MICI, in Spanish), the econ...

The 13th multilingual Cinde job fair began this Friday and will extend through this Sunday, February 19. 49 companies are looking to fill 2,700 positions that require candidates to dominate at least a second language, particularly English or Portuguese. Microsoft, Amazon, Convergys, IBM, Western Union, Citi, Bayer, Dell, Siemens, Roche, Kimberly-Clark, 3M, and Sykes are just some of the com...

Roche, the biggest biotechnology company in the world and one of the preferred employers globally will invest in a new Shared Service Center in Information Technology (IT) in Costa Rica, for the operations of the pharmaceutical in U.S.A. and Canada. Roche is recognized for its focus in the development of innovative medication and diagnose equipment which allow patients to live longer and have a...

On Wednesday this week, San José, Costa Rica municipal police closed the Levi’s store in the downtown retail area for a 24-hour period, reported local media. The closure was due to the store failing to comply with set hours for public trash pick-up along downtown’a Central Avenue, a highly transited dense commercial area. The store was given written notice about the time-frame for curbside t...

The Costa Rican airline, Air Costa Rica, began operations this Friday in the modality of charter flights. This first flight, contracted by a travel agency, had 89 passengers on board and flew to Rio Hato, Panama. Air Costa Rica’s financial director (CFO), Carlos José Víquez, explained that due to the large number of “low cost” airlines operating in the region, Air Costa Rica has decided to star...

The French high-fashion company Chanel has drawn on ingredients from the world’s “blue zones,” areas of greatest human longevity, to create a new anti-aging serum, reported the company. “Inspired by the regions where people live longer: the Blue Zones, Chanel Research sourced three longevity ingredients from the diet of the Blue Zone populations for the first time in a breakthrough skincare,” s...