An Uber driver in Bogota. Wikimedia Commons The Executive Board of the Public Transportation Council (Spanish initials: CTP) of Costa Rica has determined that the controversial private transportation service Uber does not conform to standing law in our country. The resolution by CTP comes after weeks of debate and protest from the taxicab labor unions and lawmakers. This determination makes...

NEW YORK & SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Fitch Ratings has affirmed Banco BAC San Jose, S.A.'s (BAC San Jose) long-term Issuer Default Rating (IDR) at 'BBB-'. The Rating Outlook is Stable. A full list of rating actions follows at the end of this press release. KEY RATING DRIVERS BAC San Jose's IDRs and National Ratings reflect the support it would receive from its parent, B...

Source: Banco Central With a fiscal deficit approaching six percent of gross domestic product (GDP), Costa Rica is increasingly looking at tax reform as a viable option. At one point, the administration of President Luis Guillermo Solis hinted at the possibility of increasing enforcement, which many analysts believe is sorely lacking in Costa Rica; alas, such an option is taking a backseat to ...

San Jose, Aug 30 (EFE).- President Luis Guillermo Solis has issued an executive order banning the development of hydroelectric power plants along Costa Rica's Pacuare and Savegre rivers for the next 25 years. The environmental protection measure covers power projects with a generating capacity equal to or greater than 500 kilovolts to keep the rivers clean and free of barriers. The goal is t...

Bayer SAN JOSE, COSTA RICA--(Marketwired - Aug 27, 2015) - The Bayer Group opened a plant for the production of a non-reversible permanent contraceptive device today, with an investment of US$12 million and an initial employment generation for up to 75 people. The plant, located in the Zona Franca Metropolitana in Barreal de Heredia covers about 1,400 square meters, dedicated to the assembl...

Source: Sprout New York, Aug 20 (EFE).- Canadian drug maker Valeant Pharmaceuticals International said Thursday it has agreed to acquire North Carolina-based Sprout Pharmaceuticals, maker of a pill that increases women's sexual desire, for $1 billion in cash and a share of future profits. The announcement comes two days after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the drug, flibanse...

Wikimedia Commons Today is the feast of Assumption of the Virgin Mary into Heaven, a Holy Day of Obligation in the Roman Catholic faith, and it is also Mother’s Day in Costa Rica as well as in some regions of Belgium. Home appliances are some of the most traditional presents for mothers in Costa Rica on their special day; some of the most popular choices are stoves, refrigerators and washing m...

Crowne Plaza in San Jose. Source: ICT ICCA Press Release / San Jose, Costa Rica – Last month, the Costa Rica Tourism Board (ICT) launched a new marketing campaign, “From Green Space to Meeting Space,” that aims at highlighting the reasons why Costa Rica is an ideal destination for meetings, congress and conventions. “Many have enjoyed Costa Rica’s biodiversity for leisure and are unaware of...

San Jose, Aug 13 (EFE).- Clean energy sources were used to generate 100 percent of the electricity in Costa Rica for 94 straight days, breaking the old record of 75 days set between January and March of this year, the state-owned Costa Rican Electricity Institute, or ICE, said. No fossil fuels were burned between May 8 and Aug. 9 to generate electricity, cementing Costa Rica's "world leadership...

Source: Ad Astra Ad Astra Press Release -- Ad Astra Rocket Company and NASA have successfully completed contract negotiations on the company’s Next Space Technology Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) award, announced on March 31, 2015, and now enter the execution phase of the project. The parties executed the contract, a three-year, fixed price agreement, on August 7, 2015 for a total value o...

Flickr Commons The most iconic brand of sporting equipment in Major League Baseball (MLB) will trim down its operations in Costa Rica. Rawlings, the official provider of baseballs to the MLB since the late 1970s, has announced that it will shut down its uniform manufacturing operations in Costa Rica and will move them to El Salvador, where cheaper labor and lower overhead expenses await. Ac...

Santa Cruz, Guanacaste. Source: Wikimedia Commons Economic hardship, relationship conflicts and family turmoil led three men from the Santa Cruz, province of Guanacaste, to take their own lives within 24 hours. According to a news report filed by Marco Ureña of Guanacaste online news website Primero en Noticias, all three men chose hanging as their means of suicide.   The first repo...

ASPEN, Colo., July 29, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Anne Welsh McNulty and the Aspen Institute today announced the eighth annual John P. McNulty Prize laureates, a group of extraordinary leaders who bring the spirit of innovation that characterized their success in the private sector to address some of the most intractable problems facing our world today. The 2015 Laureates are making a sign...

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Fitch Ratings has affirmed Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad y Subsidiarias' (Grupo ICE) foreign- and local-currency Issuer Default Ratings (FC/LC IDRs) at 'BB+' as well as its National Scale ratings at 'AAA(cri)'. The Rating Outlook remains Negative. A complete list of rating actions follows at the end of this release. Grupo ICE's ratings are supported by its l...

SBWIRE Press Release -- A new market report from ResearchMoz.us indicates that the insurance sector of Costa Rica is poised for sheer growth and expansion over the next few years. "The Insurance Industry in Costa Rica - Key Trends and Opportunities to 2019: Global Industry Size, Shares, Growth, Analysis, Trends And Forecast" is the name of the report, which includes the following highlights: T...

GoCode, a programming academy in Costa Rica Austin, Texas (PRWEB) July 27, 2015 -- techXscapes launched its Indiegogo campaign for funding its destination bungalow-workspace pilot location in Costa Rica on July 20, 2015. Its funding goal is $75,000. Focused on technology professionals, the Bungalow-workspace concept combines co-working and co-living space ideas into a unified experience, si...

Alleged Greenwashing by Infinito Gold The controversial Canadian mining firm that fought against Costa Rica for nearly a decade over the Crucitas open-pit project has formally suspended its arbitration case presided by the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes, which serves the World Bank. According to a news report filed by Manuel Sancho of online news daily CRHoy.com,...

ALBANY, New York, July 23, 2015 /PRNewswire/ – High cost of medical treatment in developed countries has fueled the development of medical tourism, causing patients to visit other destinations for cheaper yet sophisticated treatment. Transparency Market Research, in a recent report, studies the emergence and growth of the global medical tourism industry. The report is titled "Medical Tourism Marke...

Studies by the International Organization on Migration (IOM) typically document high migration rates from “Third World” countries, such as Costa Rica, to developed nations such as member nations of the European Union. A recent presentation of a research study by the IOM, however, indicates that the trend has reversed in recent years. Part of the migration can be attributed to recent economic tu...

Source: Banco Central A legislative inquiry into the salaries of public sector employees is causing indignation among politicians, labor unions and the public in Costa Rica. Legislator Otto Guevara, a former presidential candidate representing the Libertarian Movement, has been leading a series of inquiries into the payrolls of government institutions as well as government-sponsored entitie...

Andrew Stark (left), owner of The Costa Rica Star meets U.S. Ambassador Haney Titusville, Florida. July 12, 2015. The Minority Chamber of Commerce is pleased to announce the U.S Ambassador in Costa Rica, Hon. S. Fitzgerald Haney, has accepted our invitation to attend as Keynote speaker during the Costa Rica –Minority U.S. Business Trade Mission to be held next August 19-24 in San Jose, Costa R...

TORONTO, ON and NEW YORK, NY -- Scotiabank announced today that an agreement has been reached to acquire Citigroup's retail and commercial banking businesses in Panama and Costa Rica, subject to regulatory approval. Scotiabank's common equity tier one capital ratio will be impacted by approximately 15 basis points. This acquisition is in line with Scotiabank's strategy to increase scale within ...

European Year for Development (EU Press Release) / The small Central American country of Costa Rica is in many ways seen as an example of progress in Latin America, especially when it comes to the protecting the environment. The country’s rainforest is left to grow, benefiting both nature and the tourism industry, and the country has a well-developed energy network that draws on power from four bi...

Wikimedia Commons EUROMONEY Press Release -- Leading figures from the banking and capital markets across Latin America gathered in London on Thursday to hear the announcement of Euromoney’s Awards for Excellence 2015, considered the benchmark for leading firms in financial services globally. BBVA has been named by Euromoney magazine as the best bank in Latin America. During the past year BB...

Pixabay Commons SAN JOSE, CA--(Marketwired - Jul 9, 2015) - The company GEP announced that it will install a services center in Costa Rica in the second half of the year. The company will hire multilingual professionals or advanced undergraduates with knowledge in management and engineering for its operation. The company will seek for talent with language skills in English, Portuguese, Fren...

Amazon.com Internet retail giant Amazon.com will hold a job fair in Costa Rica this week. According to a report filed by business reporter Rebeca Madrigal of online news daily CRHoy.com, the job fair will take place at Amazon’s business center in Calle Blancos on Thursday, July 9th, from 7 in the morning until 2 in the afternoon.   Amazon Costa Rica is currently seeking to fill posi...

Source: Banco Central ECLAC Press Release – Costa Rica has been able to transform its productive structure, and its achievements in forging a welfare state with greater equality and human development have been an example for all of Latin America. Now they must be defended with a comprehensive and timely fiscal reform, Alicia Bárcena, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin Ame...

CINDE In 2013, Site Selection Magazine, an industry journal dedicated to business strategy and economic development, highlighted Costa Rica as one of the Top Ten “Best to Invest” countries in the world. For this reason, the administration of President Luis Guillermo Solis Rivera has been very busy in attracting foreign investment through the Costa Rican Investment Promotion Agency (Spanish ini...

HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Alwaleed Philanthropies, today announced his intention to donate all of his wealth to philanthropy over the coming years to help build a “better world of tolerance, acceptance, equality and opportunity for all.” This $32 billion philanthropic pledge will help build bridges...

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – Nearly 10% of Costa Rica’s greenhouse gas emissions stem from coffee production, an industry integral to Costa Rica’s national identity and economy. Café Costa Rica is a nationally appropriate mitigation action (NAMA) that takes a giant step towards Costa Rica’s ambitious goal of carbon neutrality by 2021 while also strengthening a vital indu...

"Xiaomi Redmi 2" by Vernon Chan - https://www.flickr.com/photos/vernieman/16161508853/. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons Sao Paulo, Jul 1 (EFE).- China's Xiaomi, the world's No. 5 producer of smartphones, is entering Brazil, where it plans to open its first plant outside Asia. Xiaomi, known as "China's Apple," is making its Redmi 2 smartphone available at its online store to B...

PerHeadStore.com San José, Costa Rica – Today, Per Head Store has announced that the company has hired 21 additional programmers to its existing team. This step is not only important for the company to stay on top if it comes to delivering software products that are innovative and leading in its niche, but also a great benefit for the local community in Costa Rica, as this step also creates ne...

Source: Wikimedia Commons SARASOTA, Fla., June 30, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- xG Technology, Inc. ("xG" or the "Company") (Nasdaq: XGTI, XGTIW), a developer of wireless communications and spectrum sharing technologies, announced today that it has received an order for approximately $58,000 in xMax mobile broadband wireless equipment and services from Itellum, LLC ("Itellum"). This represents a follo...

Wikimedia Commons Washington, Jun 29 (EFE).- The U.S. government is not planning a federal bailout for Puerto Rico although the island is having severe financial problems and says its debt is unpayable, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Monday. "There's no one in the administration or in D.C. that's contemplating a federal bailout of Puerto Rico," Earnest said at his daily press confe...

Pixabay Commons With the global market for dental implants and prosthetics poised to grow to more than $10 billion by the end of the decade, the dental tourism sector in Costa Rica is also expected to experience substantial growth. However, not all dental clinics in our country are prepared to meet the demands of health travelers who visit us for their treatment needs. According to a recent...

Source: Pixabay Commons Administrators of the largest brothel in Europe are upset at what they consider to be unjust taxation by the Austrian government; to that effect, they have resolved to stage a protest by means of “direct action.” Over the next few weeks, the Pascha brothel is not charging clients for sessions with prostitutes. According to a news report filed by Oliver Papacek and Ma...

Jackson, Miss. (June 23, 2015) – Representatives from Mississippi Development Authority will lead a delegation of Mississippi companies on a business development mission to Central America Sept.19-25, 2015. The trip is designed to connect Mississippi businesses that want to expand trade and create new business relationships with qualified buyers in Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama. With the ...

Crossing into Nicaragua from Costa Rica at the border The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has approved a $100 million loan to the Costa Rican government to finance its Border Integration Program. The goal of the program is to increase the country's competitiveness in foreign trade by modernizing its infrastructure and equipment, establishing processes and tools for effective controls ...

Costa Rica is an increasingly expensive and prohibitive destination for foreign companies that wish to transfer their executives and staff to our country. Such was the report recently broadcast by national television network Teletica, which cited a research study by consulting firm Mercer Global. According to the Mercer report, the Greater San Jose Metropolitan Area (Spanish initials: GAM) rank...

Wikimedia Commons Panama City, Jun 18 (EFE).- Foreign direct investment (FDI) totaled $1.7 billion in Panama in the first quarter, up 32.2 percent from the same period in 2014, the National Institute of Statistics and Census, or INEC, reported. Foreign capital flowed mainly into hotels, banks, real estate, electricity generation, commerce and manufacturing, the INEC said. Some 65 percent...