Evonik headquarters SAN JOSE, Costa Rica, Jan. 19th, 2015 -  Evonik Industries, a leading global specialty chemical company based in Essen, Germany, announced today that it plans to open a financial shared services center in Costa Rica to serve the company’s operations in North and South America. Evonik will begin office construction and hiring during the first quarter of 2016 and expec...

Source: ICE CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Fitch Ratings has affirmed Reventazon Finance Trust's (RFT) US$135 million fixed-rate notes as follows: --US$135 million fixed-rate notes at 'BBB-'; Outlook Negative. The transaction is backed by a 100% participation interest in the Inter-American Development Bank's (IDB) B-Loan acquired through a participation agreement. Since IDB continues to be le...

Orange County District Attorney Press Release - WESTMINSTER, Calif. – A “hard money” lender was convicted today of embezzling over $3 million from investors in a Ponzi real estate-mortgage investment fraud scheme. Thomas Franklin Tarbutton, 56, Newport Beach, was found guilty by a jury of 18 felony counts of grand theft, nine felony counts of forgery, 11 felony counts of using an untrue stateme...

Source; Banco Central de Costa Rica NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Fitch Ratings has affirmed Costa Rica's Long-term foreign- and local-currency IDRs at 'BB+'. The Rating Outlook is Negative. The issue ratings on Costa Rica's senior unsecured foreign- and local-currency bonds have been affirmed at 'BB+'. The Short-term foreign-currency IDR has been affirmed at 'B' and the Country Ceiling at 'BBB-'...

By Alfonso Fernandez Washington, Jan 19 (EFE; additional context by The Costa Rica Star).- One of every five people in Latin America between the ages of 15 and 24 is neither in school nor working and two-thirds of them are women, according to a World Bank study released Tuesday. The figure represents more than 20 million people in the region and the problem is especially acute in Central Ame...

Aspen Institute Fellows from across the Aspen Global Leadership Network, all of whom will have attended both the Challenge of Leadership Seminar as well as the Aspen Seminar, are currently in Costa Rica for the Leading in an Era of Globalization seminar. In the Challenge of Leadership Seminar, Fellows were asked to reflect on the attributes of “effective, enlightened leadership”; in the Asp...

Pixabay Commons The passports of two German citizens awaiting trial in Costa Rica cannot be held by judicial officials and must be immediately turned over to the Embassy. Such was the demand sent by the German Consulate to the Honorable Judge Yorleny Campos of the criminal court division, Second Circuit of San Jose, earlier this week. According to a news report filed by Daniel Chinchilla Sa...

Source: Abbott CINDE Press Release - With the presence of Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis and Abbott Vascular Division Senior Vice President Mr. Deepak Nath, the company celebrated the fifth anniversary of its vascular devices manufacturing plant in Costa Rica, whose products are distributed and used around the world. Abbott has been in Costa Rica for over 80 years through the sa...

CIMA Hospital in San Jose is often visited by medical tourists A slippery United States citizen of Persian ancestry claims that his health is rapidly deteriorating as he awaits trial in Costa Rica, and he is planning international demonstrations to call attention to his plight. Cyrus Anoushirvan Sepher, a Southern California resident in his early 50s, has been remanded to the San Sebastian ...

Beijing, Jan 15 (EFE).- China's central bank said Friday it had extended 100 billion yuan ($15.18 billion) in loans to nine financial institutions, 10 days after announcing a similar operation to boost liquidity in the market. The injection of funds, which comes amid a slowdown in China's economy, was carried out via medium-term loans (six-month maturity) with an interest rate of 3.25 percent a...

Maritime Executive Press Release - GT USA announced the January 2016 launch of the new Blue Stream weekly container cargo service connecting Port Canaveral to Europe, the French West Indies, and Central America. The Blue Stream service is operated by StreamLines, N.V., part of the Seatrade Group, providing refrigerated and dry container service to and from the Canaveral Cargo Terminal, with a f...

Source: SIG (PresseBox) (Linnich, 12.01.2016) Products from Dos Pinos (www.dospinos.com) are the first choice for consumers in Costa Rica, as the 2015 “Brand Footprint” annual report published by Kantar World Panel confirms: 99.7% of survey participants said they had purchased products from Dos Pinos during the previous year. This successful cooperative – Central America’s and the Caribbean’s ...

Sunrise Tamarindo by Valenzuela Architecture Herredura, Costa Rica (PRWEB) January 12, 2016 - World renowned architect Abraham Valenzuela brings 35 years of architectural experience to Punta Bocana, with a reputation for fashioning exceptional homes and amazing commercial environments in the most exclusive areas of San Jose, Tamarindo, Nosara and Guanacaste, to name a few. Valenzuela’s primary...

Source: Hills of Portalon Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica – January 11, 2016 /MarketersMedia/ — The Ridges of Portalon, a micro-community of the master planned development the Hills of Portalon, announced today the upcoming sale to the public of their recently opened whitewater ocean-view lots. The Ridges of Portalon is located in Costa Rica between Dominical and Quepos/Manuel Antonio and is antici...

Wikimedia Commons CHICAGO, Jan. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- A.T. Kearney today released its 2016 Global Services Location Index™ (GSLI), a research paper that analyzes and ranks the top 55 countries for outsourcing worldwide based on metrics in three categories: financial attractiveness, people skills and availability, and business environment. T he GSLI brings rigor to companies' location dec...

FreeStockPhotos.biz The looming economy crisis in Latin America is becoming more apparent with new reports from Mexico and Venezuela. The national currency of Mexico showed signs of retail weakness as global markets plummeted due to concerns about reduced growth of the Chinese economy, and the price of crude oil produced in Venezuela, an OPEC member nation, fell well below $30. The followin...

Panama Canal Panama City, Jan 9 (EFE).- The consortium responsible for the main Panama Canal expansion project is the subject of a criminal complaint in the Central American country for allegedly inflating its cost overrun claims. National Bar Association Vice President Juan Carlos Arauz filed the complaint, to which EFE gained access, on Thursday with Panama's Attorney General's Office. ...

File photo The iconic Imperial beer eagle has landed at the Juan Santamaria International Airport (SJO), the main hub for air travel in Costa Rica. According to a news report published by business daily La Republica, beverage giant Florida Ice & Farm has taken the unusual step of opening an airport bar right across from boarding gate #9 at SJO. The bar tentatively opened in early Decemb...

NEW YORK, Jan. 6, 2016 - The 2016 New York Times Travel Show will open its doors Friday, Jan. 8, exclusively to travel professionals and writers for its Trade Day. The Travel Show will welcome all visitors Saturday, Jan. 9, and Sunday, Jan. 10. The Travel Show will feature more than 500 exhibitors, representing 150 countries, with representatives who will be available to offer expert insights, ...

Source: Trump Tower Montevideo, Jan 5 (EFE).- The luxurious residential tower being built in the Uruguayan coastal town of Punta del Este by the real estate group headed by U.S. billionaire and presidential candidate Donald Trump will be "the best building in South America," Eric Trump, one of the businessman's sons and a promoter of the project, told EFE. When the seaside skyscraper that h...

Costa Rica's rapid rise in the last decade to become a global hub for foreign direct investment is spurring a new wave of investment opportunities in trending sectors, boosted by an expanded tax incentives package. Costa Rica is already home to more than 275 high-tech multinational companies like Intel, Amazon, HP Enterprise, P&G, Boston Scientific, St. Jude Medical and Abbott. The country ...

Wikimedia Commons By Jairo Mejia Washington, Jan 4 (EFE).- The United States could start a "gold rush" with a new space exploration law covering bodies orbiting in the Solar System's asteroid belt. Just as lawmakers in Washington provided a legal framework for the California Gold Rush in the mid-1800s, Congress and the administration have given the green light to encourage space mining. ...

Panama Canal Panama City, Jan 2 (EFE).- President Juan Carlos Varela said Saturday that the inauguration of a newly expanded Panama Canal would take place in May in the presence of several heads of state and government, while also calling on the consortium responsible for the third-locks project to stop waging a media battle with his government. "Sometime in May 2016, our country will once ...

Villa Manzu Manuel Antonio Rental Properties, a leading vacation rental specialist company based in Costa Rica, recently added new members to their team to help manage the growing demand for their services and ensure that their high level of service is never compromised at any point. This company, which offers years of knowledge and experience in the Costa Rica rental industry, is observing...

Flickr Commons A more competitive marketplace is expected for the weight control and fitness industry in Costa Rica in 2016, a country where the rate of obesity has increased gradually over the last few years. According to a new report by Fast Market Research, players in this industry will have to adjust to innovation in 2016. Integral dietary approaches that often start with detox techniqu...

Gamesa will bring wind energy production to Guanacaste Gamesa Press Release - Gamesa and Iberdrola Ingeniería have signed EPC contracts with subsidiaries of Globeleq Mesoamerica Energy (GME) to build 80 MW in Costa Rica. The two companies will handle all the construction and commissioning phases required for this project, named Alisios, which comprises four 20-MW wind farms: Vientos de la P...

File photo LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE) -- Employees who work in the non-government business sector in Costa Rica should expect a salary raise next year that will be slightly lower than in 2015. A forecast issued earlier this month by Korn Ferry (NYSE:KFY), the preeminent global people and organizational advisory firm, reveals that workers around the world are expected see real wage increas...

Source: Telefonica Madrid, December 2015. Telefónica will launch video services in seven new Latin American markets in 2016, which will mainly be VoD (video on demand) services and linear television channels. These markets are Ecuador, Uruguay, Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua. The launch will be staggered throughout next year, and the service mode available in each cou...

Wikimedia Commons One of the joys of purchasing property in Costa Rica is the potential for landowners to plant and care for trees that will bear fruit. According to the real estate professionals at RE/MAX Ocean Surf in Tamarindo Beach, fruit trees are attractive features within listings of farms and single-family homes built on generous plots of land. Listings in the province of Guanacaste...

Panama Canal Panama City, Dec 23 (EFE).- The inauguration of the Panama Canal expansion will be delayed for six months if the ACP, the public entity administering the interocean waterway, does not make more flexible its bureaucratic and payment procedures, Giuseppe Quarta, the director of GUPC, the consortium that is handling the project, said Wednesday. "We ... (can) deliver the project" b...

Beach house in Costa Rica North American house hunters who come to Costa Rica in search of real estate bargains often find out that the financing process is not like what they are used to, at least not in terms of mortgage lending. Although there is a mortgage lending industry in Costa Rica, it is not as sophisticated or accessible as in the United States or Canada. To this end, cash is often ...

BICSA in Panama. Wikimedia Commons PANAMA CITY, Dec. 22, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Banco Latinoamericano de Comercio Exterior, S.A. ("Bladex" or the "Bank") (NYSE: BLX) announced today the closing of a US$50 million, 3-Year Senior Unsecured Term Loan Facility for Banco Internacional de Costa Rica S.A. ("BICSA"). BICSA is a bank established in Panama and owned by Banco de Costa Rica and Banco Nac...

A RE/MAX listing in Costa Rica Of all regional housing markets in Costa Rica, Tamarindo Beach is one of the most recent and affluent. Up to the late 20th century, Tamarindo Beach was a sleepy beach town characterized by lackadaisical real estate development. That changed in the early 21st century as tourists and expats discovered the beaches of Guanacaste, which are now known as being part of ...

Pixabay Commons OpenFinance, a BME subsidiary specializing in the development and implementation of technology solutions for financial advice and portfolio management, has signed an agreement with Aldesa Corporación de Inversiones for implementing its Openworkplace® platform. It will also carry out management activities with its clients and tracking product portfolios within the financial firm...

Zollner in Cartago Competing with successful companies requires a continuous supply of initiatives, ideas and concepts. One of the companies achieving success in the midst of intense global competition is Zollner AG, an electronic manufacturing services (EMS) market leader from Zandt, located in the Eastern Bavarian Forest of Germany. Founder Manfred Zollner can proudly look back on 50 year...

Desyfin office in Grecia LUXEMBOURG, December 17, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Sustainability | Finance | Real Economies SICAV - SIF (SFRE, pronounced Sapphire) has made its first investments totalling just under USD 10 million in Banco Vision (Paraguay) and Financiera Desyfin (Costa Rica), in line with its strategy of advancing social, environmental and economic development by providing capital to ba...

Source: Crowley.com (SAN JOSE, Costa Rica; Dec. 17, 2015) - Crowley Maritime Corp.'s liner and logistics group in Central America recently received National Road Safety Recognition from the Costa Rica Ministry of Public Works for their focus on regional, national and local road safety. During an awards ceremony, which took place Dec. 10, in San José, Costa Rica, Crowley was recognized for thei...

SAN JOSE, COSTA RICA--(Marketwired - Dec 15, 2015) - The Costa Rican Investment Promotion Agency (CINDE, in Spanish) and the Ministry of Foreign Trade (COMEX) reported that foreign investment businesses in the Services, Life Sciences, Advanced Manufacturing, Light Manufacturing and Food Industry sectors generated a total of 12,000 new jobs in 2015. According to Jorge Sequeira, Managing Director...

Oveedia desktop. Source: Pure LAS VEGAS, NV--(Marketwired - Dec 9, 2015) - Pure Hospitality Solutions, Inc. (OTC PINK: PNOW), parent Company of the Central American-Caribbean online travel Agency (OTA), Oveedia (www.Oveedia.com), announced today, that the Company has made significant strides over the past several weeks in preparation for a successful New Year. "Although we have been quiet w...

MIAMI (PRWEB) December 08, 2015 - Global Stem Cells Group announced plans to develop and host six new symposiums in Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Costa Rica and Ecuador in 2016. According to Global Stem Cells Group CEO Benito Novas, the lineup of Latin American conferences will be a Spanish circuit of disclosure and discussion of the science related to regenerative medicine. The decision fo...