Source: Sylvania One grumbling commonly expressed by North American expats residing in Costa Rica is related to their monthly electricity bills. Not only do they assert that they pay more in Costa Rica than they used to pay in Loafers Glory, North Carolina or in Dildo Harbour Newfoundland; they also assume that their new monthly bill has to be the most expensive in the world. The dubious re...

Source: Wikimedia Commons A common gripe heard among North American expats and tourists in Costa Rica is their disappointment at not being able to exert their purchasing power in a Third World Country. The constant nagging about how expensive Costa Rica appears to be often results in a less-than-pleasant quality of life experience, particularly for expats on a fixed income and tourists whos...

Sprint TouchPoint One, the leading provider of employee engagement and performance management solutions for contact centers, today announced the launch of the Sprint League of Champions, an Olympics themed version of its award-winning A-GAME gamification platform for contact centers and back-office operations. Sprint customer care organizations in Guatemala, Costa Rica, the Philippines and ...

Photo: BusinessWire.com Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Inc., today announced a development agreement with Inversiones DBA-KKD de Costa Rica, SRL (“Inversiones”) to open 10 Krispy Kreme shops in Costa Rica in the next five years. “Costa Rica’s rapid market growth and consumer demand for sweet treats makes this the perfect time for Krispy Kreme to expand in the country,” said Dan Beem, Krispy Kreme ...

Transporting vehicles is an essential part of worldwide logistics, and enables auto companies and individuals alike to get vehicles from point A to point B without putting thousands of miles of wear and tear on them. A-1 Auto Transport Inc. has been one of America’s most trusted suppliers of auto shipping for twenty years, and has recently increased their reach to go international. The latest t...

Source: Banco Central Latin American and Caribbean countries will show a -0.8% contraction in their growth rate in 2016, marking a steeper decline than in 2015 (-0.5%) and with very heterogeneous behavior among countries and subregions, according to a new report released today by ECLAC. Costa Rica shows moderate growth; her Central American neighbors to the north and south are expected to grow...

File photo Of all countries in the Americas, Costa Rica is one of the most friendly to foreign investors, particularly in terms of immigration. Immigration law in Costa Rica allows foreigners to invest $200,000 so that they can obtain the benefit of residency. The investment can be in a property, lot, business, shares in a corporation, etc., and the amount can be various investments that ad...

Wikimedia Commons CEMEX, S.A.B. de C.V. (“CEMEX”) (NYSE: CX) announced earlier this month that its subsidiary, CEMEX Latam Holdings, S.A. ("CLH") (BVC: CLH), participated in the expansion and improvement of a section of the Inter-American Highway, the main road in the Costa Rican highway system. CLH supplied approximately 200,000 tons of high-strength cement for this highway’s expansion, a ...

By Wendy Anders Tomorrow, Thursday July 28 at 6:00pm, CEO Dan Price of Gravity Payments in the U.S. will speak at the Universidad Latina’s auditorium in San Pedro (San José). The talk entitled “The Force of Gravity” will be given in English with simultaneous translation into Spanish; it’s free and open to the public. Price and his brother founded the financial services and credit-card pro...

Wikimedia Commons Virgin America Inc. today announced that the merger agreement with Alaska Air Group, Inc., the parent company of Alaska Airlines, Inc., was approved by an affirmative vote of the holders of a majority of the outstanding shares of Virgin America voting common stock. A report reflecting the complete voting results will be available on a Current Report on Form 8-K to be filed la...

Costa Rican president, Luis Guillermo Solis tours the Reventazon hydroelectric plant while still under construction in 2014. (Casa Presidencial)Fitch Ratings has affirmed Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad y Subsidiarias' (Grupo ICE) foreign- and local-currency Issuer Default Ratings (FC/LC IDRs) at 'BB+' and its National Scale ratings at 'AAA(cri)' and 'AAA(slv)'. The Rating Outlook remains...

Source:; Getinge GroupSan Jose, July 21st 2016. Getinge Group announced the establishment of its new Shared Services Center (SSC) in Costa Rica. The new office, located in Avenida Escazu, employs 59 associates who provide services to partners and customers in United States and Canada. The services provided are in Finance and Accounting, with the possibility of expanding into other areas such a...

Banco Latinoamericano de Comercio Exterior, S.A. ("Bladex" or "the Bank"; NYSE: BLX) announced the recent closing of a US$125 million, dual tranche (2 years and 3 years), senior unsecured amortizing term loan facility in favor of Scotiabank de Costa Rica S.A. ("Scotiabank Costa Rica"), the second largest privately-owned bank in Costa Rica. Scotiabank Costa Rica is ultimately owned by the Bank o...

A revolving door cabinet has been an unfortunate staple of the administration of President Luis Guillermo Solis, but the latest departure of a top-level official has shaken Costa Rica in a most unusual manner. For 26 months, Guillermo Santana did a less-than-stellar job as the director of the Rail Institute of Costa Rica. There were a few commuter train crashes, and there was also the dubious h...

By Wendy Anders Concentrix is a high value business services company operating in 25 different countries and a subsidiary of the Fortune 500 Synnex corporation based in Fremont, California. The company, which is celebrating 10 years of operations in Costa Rica, is currently looking for recruitment specialists, account supervisors, quality and finance analysts, customer service representative...

Source: MicrosoftStockholm – July 13th, 2016 – Millicom’s Tigo Business brand and Microsoft today announce a Microsoft Cloud OS Network (COSN) partnership to deliver cloud computing benefits to businesses in the Latam region. The partnership will enable the delivery of innovative applications and cloud services to the business community in Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador...

Sharemoney.com Sharemoney, Omnex Group's online money transfer service, is expanding services to include money transfers to Costa Rica. Sharemoney has been facilitating money transfers from the United States to countries all over the world for more than 25 years, and this expansion continues the goal of making it easier to send money worldwide.  Sharemoney's mission is to aid people who live i...

Wikimedia Commons The latest Central America Country Risk Report by Business Monitor International is now available, and it paints as less than optimistic picture for Costa Rica. Central American outperformers Costa Rica and Panama are facing a more challenging road ahead in the coming years. As real GDP growth slows in Panama on the back of the end of canal construction, establishing fisca...

Kreston International, the global network of independent accounting firms, has announced that is has admitted Díaz & Zeledón, Costa Rica, to membership. Founded in 2001 and based in San José, Díaz & Zeledón offers the full range of audit and accounting services. Kreston CEO Jon Lisby, comments: "We are delighted to strengthen our resource in Latin America with the admittance of Díaz ...

Wikimedia Commons Grupo LALA S.A.B. de C.V., a Mexican company focused on the healthy food industry, ("LALA") (BMV: LALA B) announces that it has signed a strategic agreement with the Costa Rican company Florida Bebidas, S.A. ("Florida"), for the production, distribution and sale of LALA® products in Costa Rica. This strategic agreement will provide LALA access to a platform to strengthen i...

BioNovelus BioNovelus, Inc.  is pleased to announce the results of its biodegradable fungicide, CR-10, after six months of Coffee Rust testing in Costa Rica. CoopeAgri R.L, one of the largest cooperative in Costa Rica, has released the CR-10 performance data. The results show that eco-friendly CR-10 has not only brought the coffee rust to a level of 0% in all the tested coffee plantations, ...

Wikimedia Commons By Wendy Anders Convergys, the Cincinnati, Ohio-based customer and information management company, announced another expansion of operations in Costa Rica today in a press statement. After adding 500 jobs in February, the company has had another boost in their growth and will add 500 more positions at their Ultra Park site in Heredia. The Heredia Ultra Park II shared...

By Wendy Anders New Costa Rica Marine Fuel Dock Nears Completion The Costa Rican State Oil Refinery (Recope) announced the completion of 85 percent of the work on a new marine terminal for receiving petroleum at the Moín, Limón port on the Caribbean coast. Last week, the construction of the dock’s five arms was completed, said Recope. Engineer Reina Naranjo who is in charge of the proj...

Source: Echo CR Lecturer, inspirational author and communicator Ismael Cala has confirmed his participation at ECHO (Costa Rica), an event that brings together business leaders, entrepreneurs, revolutionaries and social activists who wish to get out of their comfort zone and seek new horizons as a community. For 72 hours participants will explore their curiosity through workshops, talks and...

Banco Latinoamericano de Comercio Exterior, S.A. (“Bladex” or “the Bank”; NYSE: BLX) announced the recent closing of a US$85 million, three year, syndicated loan facility in favor of Banco BAC San José, S.A. (“BAC San José”), the largest privately-owned bank in Costa Rica. BAC San José is a subsidiary of BAC Credomatic Inc., a leading Central American banking group with operations in Costa Rica...

Copyrights [email protected] By Wendy Anders Edwards Lifesciences Corporation (NYSE: EW), the Irvine, California-based world leader in heart valve technologies and hemodynamic monitoring, announced today they are expanding operations to set up a heart valve manufacturing plant in Cartago, Costa Rica. Located in the La Lima Free Zone in Cartago, the company is currently looking to fill abo...

In Costa Rica, funds destined to finance projects of the Ministry of Transportation and Public Works (MOPT) are usually managed by national banks where deposits are unconditionally guaranteed by the government. For this reason, the MOPT Minister is now being questioned as to why he chose a private, international bank to handle more than $450 million. Minister Carlos Villalta has explained that ...

The multinational consulting firm McKinsey & Company, dedicated to helping institutions in the private, public and social sectors achieve lasting success, today welcomed Costa Rican Minister of Foreign Trade Alexander Mora to the firm’s facility in San José, where McKinsey recently added a modern design center that will support the firm’s global operations. The firm’s Costa Rica facility ...

File photo By Wendy Anders The Costa Rican Chamber of Restaurants (Cacore, in Spanish) today filed with the Civil and Adminstrative Disputes Court for an injunction against the State Treasury Department (Hacienda). They request that the Treasury Department desist from what they consider to be illegal withholding practices on debit and credit card transactions at establishments with table an...

Wikimedia Commons To be able to celebrate the Panama Canal expansion is, for many Panamanians, experiencing a milestone of their ancestors, who witnessed the first transit through the waterway 102 years ago, so they went out today to dance, which is how they express themselves best. The afternoon of Jun. 26, when the Chinese container ship Cosco Shipping Panama made the inaugural transit th...

Pixabay Commons Of all immigration proceedings available to foreigners in Costa Rica, the process of getting a work permit for employees is one of the most Byzantine. What makes getting work permits in Costa Rica so complicated is that more than one government agency is involved in the process. The Directorate of Immigration and the Ministry of Labor must review the applications before they...

Cartoon by Clay Jones Amid high security, presumptive Republican candidate for United States presidency, Donald Trump, visited Scotland where he was due to inaugurate his luxury hotel and golf complex Friday. Arriving by helicopter, Trump said the United Kingdom's decision to leave the European Union was a "great thing" and that the British people had "taken back their country." Accordin...

Bionovelus Phoenix, June 22, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BioNovelus, Inc. (PINKSHEETS: ONOV) is pleased to announce that four thousand (4,000) bottles of its biodegradable fungicide, CR-10, the answer to killing coffee rust, has been manufactured for delivery to Costa Rica. Mr. Jean Ekobo, President/CEO of BioNovelus, Inc., says, "This CR-10 allotment is slotted for ongoing tests with our partne...

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica – Last year, Costa Rica received over one million North American visitors who arrived in the country by air, and over 13 percent of these directly associated to business related travel. In recognition of the key role that the meetings industry has on the country, Costa Rica joined hundreds of other nations around the world to support the first ever Global Meetings Industry Day...

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica — CooperVision has opened a new, 100,000 square-foot, high-volume manufacturing facility at Coyol Industrial Park in Alajuela, Costa Rica, the company announced earlier this week. The Costa Rica plant is the company’s second site for clariti 1-day silicone hydrogel lens manufacturing, joining an existing facility in Budapest, Hungary. CooperVision also maintains high-volume...

Both mature and developing alcoholic drinks categories in Costa Rica experienced increased competition in 2015 - a development which, along with product innovation and changing consumer value expectations, were the main sales drivers within the area during 2015. Volume and value growth remained limited in 2015, with there being a clear trend towards modest pricing and an increase in the penetratio...

Source: Kinetos COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., June 8, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- On May 25th, 2016 STL Marketing Group, Inc. (OTC: STLK), the "Company", has created a new 51% owned subsidiary to handle the sale and commercialization of the Hound Software product that has been developed by Kinetos, S.A., a Costa Rican privately held corporation ("Kinetos"). Kinetos owns the remaining 49% of the subsidiary...

PALO ALTO, Calif., June 8, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- AirXpanders Inc. (ASX: AXP) (AirXpanders or Company) a medical device company focused on the design, manufacture, sale and distribution of the AeroForm® tissue expander, today announces that it has received commitments from sophisticated and professional investors to subscribe for 26,315,790 CHESS Depositary Interests (CDIs) (representing 8,771,930 s...

Wikimedia Commons Panama City, Jun 11 (EFE).- The container ship Cosco Shipping Panama, which on June 26 will be the first to pass through the expanded Panama Canal, set sail Saturday from the port of Piraeus, Greece, on its way to this Central American country, official sources said. Canal administrator Jorge Luis Quijano, currently in Greece with a delegation of the Panama Canal Authority...

Bionovelus PHOENIX, AZ / ACCESSWIRE / June 9, 2016 / BioNovelus, Inc.  is pleased to announce the creation of BioNovelus-CostaRica, a legal entity that will register BioNovelus products for each country in Central America. The registration for Costa Rica should be achieved by the end of the third quarter of 2016. BioNovelus President/CEO Jean Ekobo has presented biodegradable fungicide CR-1...