More than 100 new Costa Rica artisan products will be sold at the new El Mercadito store in the Juan Santamaria International Airport. The articles offered in this store include clothes, articles for house decoration, costume jewelry, among others, which are manufactured by 97 families in poverty situation. The new store will generate supply chains and employment for around 350 people that are ...

An alliance between multinational company Generac and Costa Rican company Alco, will allow the creation of a Training Center for professionals such as electrical engineers, electricity technicians and other professionals in this area. This Training Center in Costa Rica will be the only one of its kind in Central America and the second in Latin America, their current one functions in their 15,00...

According to a study by human resources firm Manpower titled “Shortage of Talent”, the difficulty of Costa Rican employers to fill the different vacancies in their companies has lowered from a 46% to a 35%; the average in the countries evaluated is of 40%, while in some countries like Colombia is close to 50%. In general, the positions that are hard to fill have remained the same in the past el...

3M 3M inaugurated new global service center in Costa Rica, increasing its presence in the country. This center will provide support to the company’s operations in conjunction with two other service centers located in Philippines and Poland. The new operation will focus in providing financial services, human resources services, technology information, optimization of processes, data use and se...

Many have watched the 2013 film The Wolf of Wall Street, directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and many perhaps have read the book by Jordan Belfort. Jordan Belfort is an executive who used his career as a stockbroker and his experience in Wall Street as inspiration for the books The Wolf of Wall Street and Catching the Wolf of Wall Street, today besides being an author, h...

Global medical equipment company Smith and Nephew inaugurated today its new factory of orthopedic devices for sports medicine in the Free Trade Zone in El Coyol, Alajuela. The new facilities required an investment of $55 million dollars and will add close to 250 jobs to the already existent 1,700. The English firm with headquarters in London will consolidate a total of 1,950 employments in Cos...

The Global Institute of Entrepreneurship and Development headquartered in Washington showed that Costa Rica is the country in Central America with more opportunities for entrepreneurship. Costa Rica’s strong points are in the Perception of Opportunities and Abilities; however the Institute indicated that the country is behind in process innovation, risk capital and absorption of technology. ...

BY Reuters - AT&T Inc <T.N> has reached an agreement in principle to buy Time Warner Inc <TWX.N> for about $85 billion (69.48 billion pounds), sources said on Friday, paving the way for what would be the biggest deal in the world this year, giving the telecom company control of cable TV channels HBO and CNN, film studio Warner Bros and other coveted media assets. The deal, which h...

The Costa Rica Expo IT-COMM, formerly Expo-Telecom, is scheduled for November 3 and 4 at the Real Intercontinental Hotel; this is the seventh edition of the event which has consolidated as one of the most important in the area of telecommunications in the Central America region. This event explores the new trends on Information and Communication Technology, from artificial intelligence, softwar...

By Wendy Anders Café con Cuerpo's waitresses, Facebook. Costa Rican models Marcela Negrini and Diana Ibarra just launched a café in downtown San José called “Café con Cuerpo,” (literally, coffee with body), reported CRHoy.com yesterday. A sort of part-Hooters, part-Hustlers Club, the company guarantees guests will be served by the sexiest waitresses in the country, according to their Fac...

Washington, Oct. 14 — El Salvador came out on top last Friday in its long-running arbitration dispute with OceanaGold Corporation, a Canadian-Australian gold and copper mining company. A gold mine in Myanmar, to give an idea of what even the beginning of such an operation looks like. Photo for illustrative purposes, source - Facebook. The company had sought $250 million in compensation for ...

By Wendy Anders Changes proposed by the Costa Rican telecom regulatory agency (Sutel) in Internet pricing that would eliminate postpaid Internet plans and charge per download fees is under criticism by the Costa Rican Professional Journalists Association (Colegio de Periodistas or Colper). “The move would be a step back in access to information,” said the association recently to Informa-Tico...

By Wendy Anders https://youtu.be/SSa9uddMMek Early Christmas shopping anyone? Meet Itiel Casas, the Costa Rican perfumer who set up a workshop last year in his house in Zapote, a district east of downtown San José. After deciding he’d had enough of the omnipresent synthetic fragrances that waft through the city streets, Casas studied traditional 16th and 17th century French perfumery t...

PRLog -- Costa Rica Meadery, which produces artisan mead (honey wine), honey, and cheese, in Desamparados de Alajuela, won three medals - two golds and a bronze - at the 5th Annual Copa Cervezas de América, one of the most important beer-related events in Latin America. The award ceremony was held on October 1st, 2016 in Santiago, Chile. The 2016 Copa Cervezas de America competition winners wer...

/PRNewswire/ --The third edition of the Life Sciences Forum Costa Rica, organized by the Costa Rican Investment Promotion Agency (CINDE), gathered over 450 participants including international speakers, consulting firms, international academia, researchers and corporate representatives of over 100 companies, who during two days, discussed the world's leading industry trends of the sector and how C...

The company Resonetics announced the opening of a new factory with state-of-the-art technology in laser micro-manufacturing systems, the same will be located in the Coyol Free Zone in Alajuela. The construction of the new plant began back in May and is expected to be concluded this month. The new factory of 1,486 square meters will offer larger volume of production, a clean room with laser process...

The online betting industry has been a topic of relevance and controversy pretty much since the moment when the first online sportsbook appeared,  it was towards the end of the 90’s decade when the phenomenon had already popularized and companies had established offshore in places such as Curacao, Antigua & Barbuda, Costa Rica and Panama; it’s reported that what started in the mid-nineties wit...

Companies can play an important role in improving city life if they pursue programmes to benefit workers as much as profit margins, Harvard Business School Professor Michael Porter said on Thursday. The impact of businesses on cities has become more pressing as more than half of the world's population already live in urban settlements, a number forecast to rise to 70 percent by 2050, with the f...

/PRNewswire/ For the third time, Costa Rica will host the largest Latin American forum in the Life Sciences field: the Life Sciences Forum 2016, an event organized by the Costa Rican Investment Promotion Agency (CINDE). The forum will gather some 350 international and national participants who will analyze the main trends in the life sciences industry, and explore Costa Rica's potential in one ...

By Wendy Anders Costa Rica’s Chamber of Restaurants (Cacore) has teamed up with Quatro, a legal and tax advising firm, to aid current and prospective restaurant owners better manage their businesses, and improve profitability and sustainability. Frequent changes in the economic environment, an oversupply of restaurants, and constant changes in legislation are the three main factors that can ...

by Wendy Anders This week, the state-owned Banco Nacional de Costa Rica (BNCR) announced a new series of bank accounts that require fewer requisites to open. The three different types of accounts make banking in Costa Rica accessible for the first time to foreigners, youth, elderly, and others who may previously have found it difficult or impossible to supply the paperwork required to open a...

ATLANTA, Sept. 8, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Equifax Inc., a global information solutions company, today announced the opening of its second shared services center in Costa Rica. With this new site, the company expects to grow to 1,000 total employees by the end of 2017. The company, which has been operating in Costa Rica since 1995, is continuing to deliver on its operations expansion plan, which wa...

The province of Limon is considered by many the “ugly duckling”  or the “Cinderella” of Costa Rica, neglected by many government administrations, the inhabitants of this province complain of the abandonment they’ve lived in.  The reasons for this are really not clear at all, as it is the country’s main port, 80% of the exports and imports go/come through Limon. Aside from this, the Caribbean coast...

Costa Rica has always stood by the defense of human rights, promoting an inclusive and tolerant society; and even though this is still a work in progress, there is a big sector of the population that is not only respectful of the LGBTI community but in fact they understand the big potential behind this market, the tourism sector. Costa Rica’s Diverse Chamber of Commerce also known as Costa Rica...

By Wendy Anders Marketwire reported today that Toronto, Canada-based Bravo Multinational Incorporated earlier this year partially acquired the Centro de Entretenimiento y Diversion Mombacho S.A., located in Managua, Nicaragua. Bravo to date has purchased 150 of a total contracted 500 slot and video poker gaming machines to be operated and managed under a long-term national license throug...

Source: Pure Hospitality Pure Hospitality Solutions, Inc. (OTC PINK: PNOW), parent Company of the Central American-Caribbean Online Travel Agency (OTA) Oveedia, announced today, that the Company is launching an international, bi-lingual newsletter, in conjunction with the release of the next iteration of Oveedia. "Here in Costa Rica, we have a very strong following and somewhat substantial ...

By Wendy Anders The Costa Rican Professional Accountant’s Association (CCPCR, in Spanish) will be holding a free consultation session tomorrow, Wednesday, August 31, at the Central Park in downtown San José from 9:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. for micro, small, and medium businesses who have tax filing questions. The actividad is called “Free Certified Public Accountant for a Day,” and is timed one mo...

By Wendy Anders For the fifth year in a row the Universidad Latina (ULatina) has awarded five youth ages 18-29 for heading up projects that have a positive social impact, stated ULatina in a press statement. The Yo Creo Premio (I Believe Award) awarded five $2,500 grants on Friday to talented young people who have shown a demonstrated and measurable impact in addressing problems facing their...

Source: OWC Job generation, increased tourism and healthy profits from equipment sales are the highlights of a new market research report by Technavio. Costa Rica gets a special mention within the report: The research study covers the present scenario and growth prospects of the global sports fishing equipment market for 2016-2020. To calculate the market size, the report has taken into con...

By Wendy Anders  With no end in sight to Guanacaste's ongoing potable water shortages as wells throughout the region face very low levels, some businesses and also the government are turning to sea-water processing as an alternative. Last month, Reserva Conchal hotel inaugurated the first desalination plant in Costa Rica which produces 23 liters of potable water per second by processing ocea...

Fitch Ratings-New York/San Salvador-24 August 2016: Fitch Ratings has affirmed the ratings for Banco BAC San Jose, S.A. (BAC San Jose) including the Long-Term Foreign Currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) at 'BBB-' and Long-Term Local Currency IDR at 'BBB'. A full list of ratings follows at the end of this press release. KEY RATING DRIVERS IDRs, NATIONAL RATINGS AND SENIOR DEBT Banco BAC San...

Pixabay Commons More than 82 thousand direct jobs and 43 thousand indirect jobs generated, a return of $3.179 billion on incentives received (Net Country Benefit), added to a major technology transfer, incorporation of key business innovations, dynamic productive linkages that galvanize the entry of small- and medium-sized businesses to the global economy, as well as the implementation of nove...

Costa Rica Zentrum Universität Osnabrück, part of the Lower Saxony state of northwestern Germany, recently inaugurated a unique collaboration program with seven universities in Costa Rica. The Costa Rica Zentrum at Universität Osnabrück aims to promote international and intercultural academic and scholarly exchange between Costa Rica and Germany. The Costa Rica Center's research profile and...

Managua - Wikimedia Commons The Latin American Business Council, known as CEAL, said Thursday that the region should take advantage of its assets to achieve shared prosperity. Being well-positioned in regard to the "great megatrends" of security in food, water and energy; sustainability; and peace demonstrates that Latin America is "part of the solution and not part of the problem," the pre...

Source: Crowley As part of Crowley Maritime Corporation’s goal to help customers increase the velocity of their supply chains, and in doing so reduce their overall landed costs, the company announced today that it is launching a new, weekly, fixed-day container shipping service between Jacksonville and Costa Rica. “We are pleased to bring this new service to the market beginning today from ...

Wikimedia Commons Costa Rica is the second most innovative economy in Latin America, and it is ranked  45 in the world according to the Global Innovation Index. The index gave Costa Rica a 78.5 score in political stability and safety but only 50.1 in terms of government effectiveness. Moreover, Costa Rica's ease of doing business received a score of 81. The country is ranked 64 in the world...

By Wendy Anders Construction workers on the build site of Croc's Casino Resort in Jaco Beach Business leaders expressed their concerns over stagnant unemployment after 2nd quarter data was made public by the National Census and Statistics Institute (INEC, in Spanish). The INEC announced last week that 9.4 percent of the work force, or over 200,000 people, are unemployed, a figure that ha...

By Wendy Anders Last Wednesday August 10 at Germany’s Federal Foreign Ministry Office, Costa Rica and Germany celebrated the ratification of the establishment of legal instruments as part of an agreement to eliminate double taxation of income and assets, stated Costa Rica’s Ministry of Foreign Relations in a press release Friday. The agreement aims to provide clear guidelines for both co...

Establishing a business enterprise in Costa Rica is a fairly straightforward process that has considerable immigration benefits for foreigners. Many foreign investors feel empowered to expand their businesses and make them profitable once they are residents; a few of them, however, choose to ignore national labor laws and hire foreign employees without the adequate immigration permits. The lega...

When choosing a back office and support solution for their business, one of the most important aspects that sports advisors should remember is that cheaper is never better. In fact, cheaper will often mean that a disaster is just waiting to happen. There is no doubt that the best solution for sports advisors these days can be found in Costa Rica, the country where the concept of Pay-Per-Head wa...