By Wendy Anders “The last time we used a fossil fuel plant to generate electricity was June 16,” stated the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) earlier this week. That made for 76 straight days of green energy production reported on this week, as Costa Rica takes the region's lead in renewable energy. In 2015, Costa Rica generated 99 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, and...

Buenos Aires, Sep 2 (EFE).- Crime and violence plus the economy have become over the past year the biggest concerns for Latin Americans, who also see domestic violence as what most damages their societies, according to a Latinobarometro survey released Friday in Buenos Aires. On the average, crime is the most important problem for 22 percent of Latin Americans, topped only by the sum of those wor...

By Wendy Anders Costa Rica Colones currency The Guatemala-based Central American Institute for Fiscal Studies (ICEFI) in a recent report states that while good public debt management can be a tool for promoting a country's development, if the debt goes beyond the country’s ability to pay, it can stress public finances and divert resources from social programs and other essential needs. C...

By Wendy Anders Wikimedia Commons Qualy TV, Costa Rica’s Direct-to-Home television service, announced today it will be ceasing its operations. The announcement comes just under two years after its commercial launch in Costa Rica, reported The Netherlands’ digital Telecompaper. “In the last few months we have experienced various difficulties beyond our control, prompting us to take the de...

By Wendy Anders Oxfam Germany’s recently published report detailing working and living conditions for Costa Rica’s pineapple and Ecuador's banana workers, “Sweet Fruit, Bitter Truth,” does not mince words. “This investigation reveals (too) many violations of human and labour rights in the production of bananas and pineapples,” said the report based on numerous interviews conducted with worke...

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...

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...

By Wendy Anders The country's largest housing fair, ExpoCasa, starts today, Wednesday August 24, and will run until Sunday 28 at ParqueViva in La Guácima de Alajuela. New homes starting at 35 million colones (about $63,000) are available as is financing for up to 40 years. Davivienda Bank is the main sponsor of the event which has brought together 84 real estate companies, 16 banks, two i...

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...

By Wendy Anders Last year, many in Costa Rica were surprised by a governmental decision to ban imports of Mexican avocados. The government alleged the ban was due to a blight that might spread to local crops, according to reports in various local media sources, but inside sources said the allegation was unfounded. For the last two decades, Mexico has provided Costa Rica with the vast majo...

By Wendy Anders AT&T Inc., the Dallas, Texas-based multinational telecommunications conglomerate, was granted a 10-year data transfer and leased line license last week by Costa Rica's telecom regulator Sutel, reported Costa Rica’s Spanish daily La Nación today. This newest operator in Costa Rica’s telecom market will not offer services to individual consumers, rather will “Focus on offer...

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 ...

ICR-CRS Archive/FILE (Pictured: Workers at a multinational medical device manufacturing company's facility in Heredia, Costa Rica) By Wendy Anders The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in its most recent edition of an annual series on Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America (June 2016) reported that FDI flows to Central America were up by 6 pe...

Pixabay Commons ST. LOUIS (August 12, 2016) – The U.S. soybean industry is a multi-faceted, global business, and 10 U.S. soybean farmers just got a closer look at how their soy checkoff works in that marketplace to all U.S. soybean farmers’ benefit. Sponsored by the United Soybean Board’s Audit and Evaluation (A&E) Committee, the See for Yourselfprogram connected these farmers with their c...

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 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...

Affordable healthcare isn’t a myth. In fact, healthcare systems in other countries can be equally as good—if not better—than that in the U.S.—and charge far less for their services. As more and more U.S. retirees learn that better and faster healthcare is available abroad at a fraction of the cost they’re accustomed to paying at home, a growing number of them are opting to take advantage of what’...

By Wendy Anders At ten this morning, the country’s public service regulator, Roberto Jiménez, received taxi sector leaders as they demanded to be heard one more time on the issue of Uber’s legality in the country. Jiménez reiterated that his agency, the Aresep, has done everything in its power to regulate public transportation services, and that any further decisions are pending court decisi...

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...

By Wendy Anders Last week Citi inaugurated two new buildings in Costa Rica, and announced 400 new positions to be filled by the end of this year, stated the company in a press release. New York City-based Citigroup, Inc., or Citi, is a multinational investment banking and financial services corporation suffered huge losses during the global financial crisis of 2008 and received a massive sti...

By Wendy Anders Border police of Panama In recent days, an estimated 400 irregular migrants slipped over from Panama to Costa Rica in the Paso Canoas border area. They are being registered and receiving lodging at the border, said Mauricio Herrera, communication minister, in a statement to Monumental Radio Saturday. Public Security Minister Gustavo Mata spoke to Monumental Radio this wee...

By Wendy Anders The Costa Rican-based business research media, CentralAmericaData.com released today 2015 data on Costa Rica’s vehicle fleet. Automobiles comprise the largest percentage of Costa Rica’s vehicular fleet, comprising 63 percent of the country’s 1.3 million vehicles in circulation, compared to 1.5 percent corresponding to buses, which in 2015 numbered about 20,000. Almost 20 p...

By Wendy Anders Costa Rican telecommunications oversight agency, the Superintendency of Telecommunications (Superintendencia de Telecomunicaciones, SUTEL), published today the rules for the auction of spectrum in the 1800MHz and 1900MHz/2100MHz bands. In the first half of 2017, SUTEL will sell 70MHz of frequencies left over from the 2011 tender, including 2×20MHz in the 1800MHz range and 2×1...

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 ...

Auxis, a leader in providing performance-driven management consulting and outsourcing services and a pioneer in the Latin America Shared Services industry, announced today that its Founder and CEO Raul Vega will again serve as Chairperson for the upcoming 10th Annual Shared Services & Outsourcing Week Latin America scheduled for August 22-24, 2016 at The Ritz-Carlton Coconut Grove in Miami, FL...

By Wendy Anders The country’s Hyundai dealer, GrupoQ, announced they will recall over 200 Hyundai Santa Fe vehicles (years 2016-2017) from the market, stated the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Commerce (MEIC) Friday. The country’s Consumer Support Office (Dirección de Apoyo al Consumidor, DAC) made consumers aware of the lack of passenger-seat airbags in 2016 and 2017 Santa Fe Hyundai mod...

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...

Nichols Brosch Wurst Wolfe & Associates, Inc. (NBWW), along with Costa Rican partner Alberto Reifer & Arquitectos, are delighted to announce they will design Sabana Capital, the latest icon in real estate in San Jose, Costa Rica. Developed by H-Solis, the urban development will be the largest mixed-use real estate development in the history of Central America. Located in the heart of Co...

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...

Source: PRC FM Earlier this month, Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks with Foreign Minister Manuel Gonzalez Sanz of Costa Rica in Beijing. Wang Yi expressed that Costa Rica is an important cooperative partner of China in Central America. China is willing to join hands with Costa Rica to further promote exchanges between government departments, legislative bodies and political parties of bo...

By Wendy Anders Within two months a new mechanism for insuring domestic workers will be ready to be implemented, stated Gustavo Picado, finance manager of the Costa Rican Social Security Bureau (CCSS), the country’s public health service agency. Speaking to Monumental Radio last week, bureau officials said they aimed to increase coverage of this vulnerable group. Only 14 percent of Costa Ric...

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...

By Wendy Anders The Central American business magazine, Revista Mercados y Tendencias, reported July 19 on a commercial ferry service between Costa Rica and El Salvador that will open at the end of this month. The ferry will operate three weekly trips in both directions between the Costa Rican Pacific port of Caldera and El Salvador’s La Unión port, with a capacity of up to 85 trailers per t...