PriceSmart, Inc.announced that on February 1, 2017, it acquired approximately 242,000 square feet (22,500 square meters) of land in Santa Ana, San Jose, Costa Rica upon which the Company plans to construct a new warehouse club. This new warehouse club is currently planned to open in the fall of 2017. With the six warehouse clubs currently operating in Costa Rica, this new club will bring the nu...

By Wendy Anders Looking for a light, fruity, and easy mixed-drink option? Two new Smirnoff flavored alcoholic drinks were introduced this month in Costa Rica by Florida Beverages and Diageo, said the companies. Smirnoff Ice Electric Spicy Grapefruit (exclusive to Costa Rica) and Smirnoff Ice Electric Maracuyá can be found in supermarkets, convenience stores, and liquor stores and bars thr...

Starbucks chairman and CEO sent the following message to all partners (employees) on January 29, 2017 Starbucks sent the following message to all partners (employees) on January 31st 2017 Regarding creating jobs for veterans UPDATED January 31st 2017 Dear partners, I write to you today with deep concern, a heavy heart and a resolute promise. Let me begin with the news that is immed...

By Wendy Anders An estimated 123,000 people throughout the country benefited from Costa Rica’s National Bank (Banco Nacional de Costa Rica, BNCR) growing social responsibility program in 2016, said the financial entity last week. The bank’s vision of a sustainable management model includes outreach throughout the country to provide volunteers in poor communities, holding financial education ...

By Wendy Anders Representatives from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Mexico met for the second conference of the commission that administers the Central America-Mexico free trade agreement. The Costa Rica delegation was led by Jhon Fonseca, Vice Minister of Foreign Trade. During the event, the leaders analyzed the evolution of the region’s trade, and stressed the ...

By Wendy Anders Private-sector construction in Costa Rica grew in the fourth quarter of 2016 at a year-on-year rate of 10.6 percent, showing a rebound in activity after showing negative rates of growth since the final quarter of 2015 (with the exception of the first quarter of 2016), said Costa Rica’s Central Bank this week. The amount of construction in the fourth quarter of 2016 was 1,163,...

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, the New York Stock Exchange's blue-chip index, closed above 20,000 for the first time in its history on Wednesday, while two other leading stock market indexes - the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite - both set new record highs. The Dow closed at 20,068.51, up 0.78 percent, while the S&P 500 finished up 0.80 percent at 2,298.37 and the Nasdaq climbed 0.9...

Starbucks Coffee Company will present this January 26th the new Hacienda Alsacia coffee, harvested in their property in Costa Rica. Carlos Mario Rodríguez, director of the Product Support Center and Mónica Bianchini country manager for Starbucks Coffee will be part of the presentation of this coffee, grown in the property the company acquired in 2013 near the Poás Volcano in Alajuela with the p...

Walmart has confirmed the construction of new Walmart store, this time locate in the city of Liberia in the province of Guanacaste, Costa Rica, nearby the EL Sitio Hotel, an area of high transit. With this new location, the first one constructed outside the metropolitan area, the company will have a total of 10 establishments of this brand in the country. Julio Viales, mayor of Liberia, con...

Uncertainty surrounding the economic policy in the United States under the new administration will bring financial stability to Asian markets during the first half of 2017, prominent economists and strategists of HSBC in Hong Kong said Thursday. Several financiers of the world's sixth largest bank by total assets said Donald Trump's political strategies will spur economic development during the f...

Costa Rican president, Luis Guillermo Solís, during his visit this month to Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah announced his country will establish an embassy and commercial office in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In an interview with EFE during his first tour of an Arab state, he said that the opening of both initiatives has already been approved with the goal of "broadening and consolidating bila...

January 16, 2017: Forty of the world's biggest companies agreed Monday find sustainable ways to make and consume plastic as the waste threatens the globe’s eco-systems, especially oceans, said international media reporting on the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The planet's dangerously polluted oceans will contain more plastic waste than fish by 2050 if urgent action isn't taken, th...

Grupo Televisa, S.A.B. and Univision Holdings, Inc. announced a strengthened and expanded relationship between the two companies by unifying both of their content development and production efforts. Both companies will benefit from a single, integrated focus on the Hispanic audience in the United States and the domestic Mexican audience, as well as from potential cost synergies from aligned con...

Madrid, Jan. 16 — Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC said Monday it will pay a total of around 671 million pounds sterling ($810 million) to law enforcement authorities in the United States, United Kingdom and Brazil to settle bribery and corruption charges, according to a report from Dow Jones Newswires. The company, which manufactures jet engines and marine diesel engines, said it had reached deferred ...

Santiago, Jan. 14 — An eco-terrorist group on Saturday said it was responsible for a parcel bomb that detonated at the home of the chairman of the board of Chilean state-owned mining giant Codelco, the world's biggest copper producer. In an Internet blog site, the group known as Individualists Tending toward the Wild (ITS-Chile) posted a statement in which it claimed responsibility for Friday's...

Nine companies and institutions received the recognition Costa Rica Incluye (Costa Rica Inclusive), for their good practices of social and labor inclusion of people with disabilities. The recognition is promoted by the Business for Development Association, the second Vice-President of the Republic, the Work Ministry and the National Council of People with Disabilities (CONAPDIS), in alliance wit...

Executives from Honeywell’s global distributor for solar technology, Global Solar Trading BV (GST), visited El Salvador recently to meet with Solanda, a local company providing renewable energy technology. The two companies clinched a deal to distribute and expand solar technology in Central America. "El Salvador's energy potential is high, as there are an average of six hours of intensive s...

Buenos Aires, Jan. 10 — President Mauricio Macri said Tuesday that oil companies and unions reached an agreement to produce natural gas at Vaca Muerta, one of the world's largest shale oil and gas fields, in a deal that will generate $5 billion in investment in Argentina this year alone. "The companies are committed to a virtuous investment process that will be $5 billion" in 2017 and double in s...

New York, Jan. 11 — U.S.-based Trigger Finance has created a new mobile application to alert users when President-elect Donald Trump tweets about a company in which they have invested. The Trump Trigger app, which is free but currently available only for iPhones, was launched in early January to give investors a heads up about changes in the price of their shares, given that the stock markets p...

By Wendy Anders During 2016, the Costa Rican economy benefited from a favorable macroeconomic environment, allowing the country's economy to maintain stable behavior; however, according to economists at Costa Rica’a ACOBO Financial Group this could change in 2017, causing some indicators such as the exchange rate, interest rates, and inflation to rise. According to Luis Diego Herrera, econom...

By Wendy Anders Universities in the U.S. are stepping in the fill needs of foreign companies with branches, plants and offices in Costa Rica to train their workers in specialized technologies and digital innovations, reported Costa Rica’s business daily El Financierio. From 2015-2016, for example, at least 40 Costa Ricans attended the University of Wisconsin Stout’s specialization program in...

By Wendy Anders Hidro Santa Cruz, a subsidiary of the Spanish transnational Ecoener-Hidralia, announced it will not continue in Guatemala after eight years of indigenous resistance to the hydroelectric company's plans, reported Spain’s daily El Diario. In an official statement, the company announced its waiver of the rights associated with the construction of a hydroelectric dam on the Camba...

La Habana, Jan. 5 — The Cuban Coabana Trading Company LLC, a subsidiary of Reneo Consulting, will export charcoal produced in Cuba from an invasive plant to the United States in a historic step as part of the countries’ improving relations. An agreement was signed Thursday with the state-owned Cuba Export company. The charcoal is produced by private cooperatives from marabou, an invasive pla...

President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened to impose a "big border tax" on General Motors Co <GM.N> for making some of its Chevrolet Cruze compact cars in Mexico, an arrangement the largest U.S. automaker defended as part of its strategy to serve global customers, not sell them in the United States. Trump's comments marked his latest broadside aimed at an American company over job...

Mexico City, Jan. 3 — The Mexican government expressed disappointment following Tuesday's announcement by the Ford Motor Co. that it was abandoning plans for a $1.6 billion assembly plant in Mexico. Mexico will see to it that Ford reimburses the San Luis Potosi state government for any expenditures of public money made in furtherance of the project, the Economy Secretariat said in a statement. ...

2016 was a difficult year for big real estate developments, and so, the expectancy for a better 2017 is high in the construction and real estate industry. Costa Rican Central Bank expects that 2016 closes with a decline of 5.8% in the construction activities, however, it expects a growth of 4.2% for 2017. A list of 67 private real estate projects (commercial, residential and industrial) that...

By Wendy Anders In January expansion work is slated to begin at the Daniel Oduber International Airport in Liberia, said the Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT) this week. The terminal’s upgrade will cost an estimated US$10.3 million and will be ready in November. The new facilities are expected to give the airport sufficient capacity to handle the rise in passengers over the next 5 years...

By Wendy Anders The Costa Rican Conservation Federation (FECON) and the Broad Front political party are preparing to file a case in the country’s constitutional court against the Costa Rican government, FECON announced in a statement on their website just before Christmas The environmental non-profit group says the government is violating the right to citizen participation in environmental m...

Buenos Aires, Dec. 27 — Argentina's air transport unions, from flight attendants and pilots to cargo personnel, gathered Tuesday in this capital to protest against the government, which has organized hearings to study the entry of new airlines into the market, including budget carriers. Carrying flags and signs and beating drums, about 1,000 people from various unions demonstrated starting earl...

By Wendy Anders Paris, France-based JCDecaux, the world’s number one outdoor advertizing company, and Top Media, leader in the outdoor advertizing sector in Central America, signed an agreement last week to merge their activities, said the companies in a press statement In the new venture, JCDecaux-Top Media, 71 percent of the capital is owned by JCDecaux and 29 percent controled by Top Medi...

Faced with a more than 10  percent decline in exports this year, Panamanian authorities traveled to exchange information with Costa Rica's Foreign Trade Promoter (Procomer) to learn from Costa Rica's recent success exporting more than 100 products to different markets. Panama's official delegation included Deputy Minister Nestor Gonzalez, Exports Director Leyda Gonzalez, and directors of the Pa...

The international firm Universum, published the results of the Global Workforce Happiness Index, which surveys more than 250 thousand professionals in 57 countries; Costa Rica ranked in the third position. The survey takes into consideration three factors: the employee satisfaction at their current job, their likelihood of recommending their current employer and their sense of job loyalty. Ac...

Quito, Dec. 14 — The Ecuadorian government on Wednesday signed a contract with Canada's Lundin Gold company to exploit a gold and silver deposit in the southeastern Amazon province of Zamora Chinchipe. Mining Minister Javier Cordova signed the deal to extract the precious metals as part of the Fruta del Norte project in the Yantzatza region. With an investment of $1 billion, the Canadian fir...

The UN gave Costa Rican company Scosa, part of Florex Group (Grupo Florex), a global award for its inclusive employment policies. Scosa has been providing employment opportunities to the disabled population for over ten years and currently employs 12 workers in different areas: administrative, technical and others. The Association of Companies for Development presented the candidacy of Florex...

Establishment Labs started operations in 2009 as a small enterprise of only six employees, in a garage in Pavas, San Jose. Seven years later, the company strengthens its services by investing USD$35M in the expansion of its global operation, of which USD$16.5M will go to its new mammary implant manufacturing plant in Costa Rica. The consolidation of Establishment Labs' global operatio...

The Holcim plant in Lourdes, Agua Caliente, Cartago, source Facebook. By Wendy Anders In Lourdes de Agua Caliente, Cartago, the air, trees, roofs, cars, and houses are regularly bathed in dust. And it isn't the Turrialba Volcano's fault this time. This ongoing saga which is having serious health implications for the small town, was reported on yesterday by Costa Rica’s Repretel TV statio...

Lack of sleep among the U.S. working population is costing the economy up to $411 billion a year, which is 2.28 percent of the country's GDP, a new report finds. Map showing economic costs of insufficient sleep across five OECD countries. Credit: RAND Corporation According to researchers at the not-for-profit research organisation RAND Europe, part of the RAND Corporation, sleep deprivation...

Press Release / Wyndham Hotel Group announced its acquisition of Latin America's leading Fën Hotels, adding 26 management contracts across Argentina, Peru, Costa Rica, (Esplendor Hotel in Tamarindo), Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, and the U.S. including two new Fën-built Wyndham Grand hotels opening in Montevideo, Uruguay, and Asunción, Paraguay. With the addition of Fën Hotels’ signature Esplendor B...

There is no question that our lives are more and more dependent on technology, the use of the internet has ballooned in the last decade, and smart phones have become a huge part of our lives. This is the reason why companies around the world, big and small, have turned to digital marketing and advertising as their main tool to reach clients and give their brand exposure; it is clear that people...

Some stores began their promotions early in the month, others have been preparing to receive hundreds of shoppers tomorrow, Friday, November 25th in the famous “Black Friday”. Although this is a U.S. tradition, it started gaining traction in Costa Rica and other countries in the world several years ago, as an alternative for stores to get rid of inventory and make space for December’s collectio...