Costa Rica and El Salvador officially announced that both countries already have the necessary conditions for the beginning of the operations of the Central American Ferry, establishing a route for exports and imports between the ports of La Union in El Salvador and Caldera in Costa Rica. The initiative would connect the maritime commercial flow between the two nations, with the purpose of cons...

Alvaro Pereira, chief of the Economic Division of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), visited Costa Rica to meet with members of the Executive Branch regarding the progress made by the country towards reaching fiscal sustainability. Pereira highlighted once again on the importance of getting the fiscal reform approved to avoid a crisis that could have “terrible con...

The 61,595 Costa Ricans that work in the corporate services sector, which are attracted by the Costa Rican Investment Promotion Agency (CINDE), added a total of US$3.125 million in exports, last year. This represents 72% of the knowledge-intensive services exports generated by the country. This group is comprised of corporate services and the information technology sectors (ICTs). It represents...

An analysis carried out by the Comptroller General of the Republic (CGR in Spanish), “Challenges for the modernization of the remuneration scheme in the ministries” which was published today, revealed huge differences in the salaries from one Ministry to the other. The analysis was done for the Legislative Assembly, with the purpose of offering technical data and information that will serve as ...

Vice-President Epsy Campbell, the Minister of Public Works and Transport Rodolfo Mendez Mata, the Minister of Foreign Commerce Dyala Jimenez and the Minister of Coordination and Link with the private sector Andre Garnier, met with close to 20 representatives of different corporations to coordinate efforts to mitigate the direct impact that the Crisis in Nicaragua is having over ground transportati...

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) presented its Economic Outlook report 2018-2019, and in the specific case of Costa Rica affirms once again that the major domestic risk the country has involves the high fiscal deficit and the rapidly growing public debt. The report stresses that if left unaddressed the fiscal deficit and the growing public debt could end up threa...

“Fiscal Sustainability for the Wellbeing of Costa Rica” is the name of the proposal presented to the Legislative Assembly by the Minister of Treasury Rocio Aguilar this Wednesday. Administrative actions, decrees, law projects and directives are included as part of the proposal that hopes to contain the government’s expenses with the purpose of bringing down the fiscal deficit between 1.6% and 1...

The President of Costa Rica, Carlos Alvarado and the Minister of Treasury, Rocio Aguilar, signed an order today for the reduction of general managers salaries working at the State’s commercial banks, aswell as Banco Popular. He instructed the boards of directors of each of these institutions (Banco Nacional and Banco de Costa Rica) as well as Banco Popular, to adjust the salary of their general...

Costa Rica and the United States signed an agreement to exchange tax information and for mutual assistance between both countries, this with the purpose of attending to the transparency standard established by the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development). President of Costa Rica Luis Guillermo Solis and Sharon Day, US Ambassador to Costa Rica, signed the agreement that now m...

SOURCE: OECD Economic Survey The OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), an intergovernmental economic organization, presented its Economic Survey of Costa Rica in San Jose detailing “the factors behind the strong socio-economic achievements of the past decades as well as the challenges remaining to ensure growth”. “Costa Rica has made impressive economic and social pro...

If the Law to Strengthen the Public Finances is approved by the Legislative Assembly, vacationing in Costa Rica will be even more expensive then it currently is. This bill proposes the taxing of tourism services with a Value Added Tax of 4% at the beginning, 8% by the third year and finally reaching 13% by the fourth year; this would affect activities such as white-water rafting, boat rides, zi...

The judges of the Costa Rica's Constitutional Chamber (Sala Constitucional or Sala Cuarta) didn't find anything unconstitutional in the project presented to reduce the pensions of the Judiciary Power. The consultation was made by the Legislative Assembly since November 1, 2017, after the project was approved in first debate in congress. Now, with sentence number 2018-5758, the Constitutional Ch...

According to data by the Central American Institute For Fiscal Studies, in 2018 the Costa Rica State Administration will cost a 21.6% of the GNP, the highest in the Central American region. Ten years ago, in 2008, the country reported its last surplus of $52 million but by the end of 2018 the country will be short $3.5 billion. The situation of the country has deteriorated throughout the yea...

President Trump announced this week the new tariffs on aluminum and steel that will affect countries such as Costa Rica. A couple of weeks back, Commerce Department had released three recommendations relating steel and aluminum imports, yet this suggestions were not taken into consideration by President Trump and he provided his own alternatives. The final decision on the exact percentage that ...

At times when Costa Rica is in a difficult financial position with a 6.2% fiscal deficit at the end of 2017, Helio Fallas, Treasury Minister, stated that the fact that the headquarters of companies Uber and Airbnb are in other countries has made the exchange of information “difficult” and this has been a factor that hasn’t allowed the Costa Rican government to establish a mechanism to tax these ...

The Costa Rican government invests over U.S. $100 million a year in environmental protection according to information provided by Treasury, the Ministry of Environment and Energy and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Cepal) in their study Estimation of Public Expense in Environmental Protection published this March 1st. The amount is equivalent to a 0.19% of the GNP, ...

Bananas, pineapple exports and medical devices, all of great importance to Costa Rica’s economy but they still don’t come close to the numbers tourism generates for the country. Throughout the last 10 years the tourism industry has contributed over U.S. $28 billion to the country's finances and with the exception of 2009, when the world crisis affected the numbers, the growth has been of close to...

Costa Rica is known among other things as a great producer of bananas, it has been for many years one of the main economic activities of this country and one of the most important export products. During 2017 Costa Rica was able to generate over U.S. $1 billion through the export of bananas, increasing from U.S. $800 million in 2016. This industry also sustains over 100 thousand families. ...

The Costa Rica Central Bank (BCCR) affirms that the Costa Rican economy is not going through an economic recession process and is not heading into a recession process. According to Eduardo Prado, manager of BCCR, the evolution of the recent and past numbers allows them to project an economical growth for the years 2018 and 2019 of close to 3.6% which is higher than the average of the Latin Am...

The Costa Rica Chamber of Commerce provided information regarding the projections for this 2018 in a press conference this week, the growth in the commerce sector is expected to decline, going from 3.3% this year to 2.8% in 2018. The generation of new formal jobs will also suffer a decline. These conditions will definitely have an influence over the economic conditions of the country, causing ...

According to information provided by the Ministries’ of Labor the Central American countries, Costa Rica pays the highest minimum wages in the region, while Nicaragua the lowest. Minimum wage is defined as the lowest remuneration that employers can legally pay their workers; equivalently it is the price floor below which workers may not sell their labor. This amount should allow workers to cov...

In the northern region of Guanacaste, forested lands increased from 51 percent in 2005 to 60 percent in 2015, transforming the landscape that in the 1970s was nominated by livestock ranches, and now encourages eco-tourism, according to information released by the 2017 "Estado de la Nación," or State of the Nation report in Costa Rica. Today an estimated 75.5 percent of Costa Rica's territory is...

The annual report on Costa Rica's "State of the Nation" shows some disheartening realities with 20 percent of households stuck in a cycle of poverty and exclusion. While some families in extreme poverty, notably in rural areas, got a foothold out of their dire situation over the past year, this appears mainly due to government aid programs, and not due to permanent economic solutions or changes...

Over 33,500 new jobs were created at multinational corporations based in Costa Rica between 2014 and 2016. These jobs were created by companies that newly set up operation or expanded their existing projects in the country, said Luis Gamboa Arguedas, president of the Costa Rican Development Initiatives Coalition (CINDE). During this period, the country racked up at least 118 such foreign inv...

Doing Business 2018: Reforming to Create Jobs is a World Bank Group report which measures the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it. “Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 190 economies—from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe—and over time. Doing Business measures regulation...

According to the last National Homes Survey carried out by the Statistics and Census Institute, there’s been a reduction in the number of homes in extreme poverty and rural, urban and multidimensional poverty in comparison to the years 2015 and 2016. The survey was carried out with a sample of 10,712 homes in different areas of the country. The study shows that 8,341 Costa Rican homes are n...

Costa Rican and global business and government leaders will meet next week to discuss investment opportunities in Guanacaste, Costa Rica's northern province known for its idyllic beaches and stunning national parks, including the now active Rincon de la Viejo Volcano. Toronto, Canada-based Colliers International, a global commercial real estate services giant will be hosting the event. This is ...

A recent ranking of road infrastructure in Latin America lists Costa Rica as second to last, followed by Paraguay and Haiti who are tied for last place with similarly dismal rankings.   The information came to light in the most recent 2017-2018 competitiveness report issued by the World Economic Forum and focused on the quality of roads. The ranking is based partially on the percepti...

Women in Costa Rica are better educated, but have fewer employment opportunities. This, and the concentration of poverty among women and girls, are some of the recent findings of the 2017 State of World Population report published by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) The report focuses on reproductive health and rights in times of inequality. "In Costa Rica between 2010 and 2016 the i...

The Costa Rican Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAG) shared preliminary data (as of October 8) on the status of damages to crops after recent heavy rains. More than 124 thousand hectares of crops (over 300,000 acres) were affected from the intense rains  dropped by Tropical Storm Nate late last week. The area with the greatest impact is the Chorotega Region with almost 106 thousand he...

The Costa Rican Government has been talking about the need of a tax reform for some time now, the OECD has even warned that without fiscal reforms there is a high possibility that the country will face a serious fiscal crisis. This situation will not apparently pose a problem as the country faces huge loses after the devastation caused by Tropical Storm Nate this last week. Sergio Alfaro, Minis...

As of yesterday, management regulations went into effect for four species of sharks (silky sharks and three species of thresher sharks) included in Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) during the XVII Conference of the parties (CoP) in Johannesburg, South Africa last year. The measures require that any future export of th...

On average, companies in the Central American region pay 45.8 percent of their profits in taxes, while companies in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries on average pay 41 percent. A study on the evolution of the fiscal situation in Central America by the Federation of Central American Chambers of Commerce (FECAMCO, in Spanish) revealed the fact that in Costa Ri...

For the estimated 70,000 American citizens living in Costa Rica, what will President Donald Trump’s new proposed federal tax cuts for the middle class and corporations mean to them? Will U.S. tax cuts make any difference to the average retiree living on Social Security and perhaps a pension as a Costa Rican resident or perpetual tourist? For these expat retirees, these new proposed tax cuts ...

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Friday China is ready to make concerted efforts with Costa Rica to forge a closer, more extensive and deeper strategic partnership to better benefit the two peoples, and make greater contributions to regional peace and stability. Led by exchanges between the two heads of state, China-Costa Rica ties have seen steady development and fruitful results sinc...

On the morning of September 8, Taro Kono, Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs, held a meeting with Manuel Antonio Gonzalez Sanz, Minister of Foreign Relations of the Republic of Costa Rica, who was visiting Japan on a tour of East Asia earlier this month, said Japanese and Costa Rican government statements.   Minister Kono welcomed Minister Gonzalez to Japan, noted that Japan and Cost...

Debt-for-nature swaps are financial transactions in which a portion of a developing nation's foreign debt is forgiven in exchange for local investments in environmental conservation measures. Monday, the debt-for-nature swap between the United States and Costa Rica invited non-profit organizations to submit proposals for forest conservation projects in the 7th round of funding under the program...

Costa Rica's retail clothing and accessories store, Ekono, with 37 outlets throughout the country, announced this week an alliance with AirPak - Western Union, said the company in a press release. The partnership will allow customers to access the Colorado, U.S.-based transnational Western Union's domestic and international money wire services. With this alliance, customers of Ekono will be ...

Roche, a branch of Hoffman-La Roche, selected Escazú Village as the new headquarters of its Costa Rican Global Shared Information Technology Services Center. The center will serve the company's operations in Canada and the United States, said a report in Costa Rica's Summa business magazine. F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG is a Swiss multinational healthcare company that operates worldwide under two di...

The conditions and particularities of women's work, their additional burdens of reproductive and elder care-taking, as well as the persistent wage gap between men and women, among many other aspects, require the establishment of a lower retirement age for women, said findings presented by the Costa Rican judiciary's Gender Commission. Resident Coordinator of the United Nations System, Alice Sha...