Top 10 Costa Rica

The recent passage of the General Telecommunications Law (LGT - Ley General de Telecomunicaciones) cleared the way for the entrance of new competitors into the Costa Rica mobile market. Signals Telecom Consulting points out that America Movil, Digicel, Millicom and Telefonica are the most important candidates for launching operations in a market that is attractive for various reasons: low mobile teledensity (less than 40%), high ARPU levels (the highest in Central America) and the absence of a prepaid market.

Signals estimates that during the 2008 - 2013 period, the arrival of new operators will fuel a lines CAGR of 20%. Also, mobile telephone invoicing levels will surpass the US$ 5.895 billion mark for the same period. Read the rest of this entry »

Costa Rica is an attractive country for foreign investment in Latin America. The Costa Rica government and financial institutions maintain a pro-US stance in doing business. Many new trade laws are being looked at and will only make doing business better for the foreign investor. The economy is being transformed from its dependence on coffee and bananas to one of foreign trade and high tech communication services.

Not only does Costa Rica have good drinking water, but also Wi-Fi Internet in the parks and malls around the country. Costa Rica is on the cutting edge of not being considered a third world country. They are up to date on services desired by the foreign investor. High speed internet is being extended across the country by ICE ( Costa Rica Institute of Electricity ). The one and only phone company of Costa Rica. In a way this monopoly has worked to be an advantage because the services offered are rapidly expanding throughout the whole country. Unlike smaller phone companies that could not offer cutting edge technology in remote areas.

Costa Rica is definitely on the top list of countries to invest in. High tech companies will spur the export boom. Costa Rica will continue to grow. Land, housing, and commercial properties will continue to be an investment now and your portfolio of wealth for the future.

Gap Investors Ltda is a Costa Rican company, incorporated in 2000, specializing in brokering syndicated loans, which are loans offered by a group of lenders, to provide funds for a borrower for real estate development in Costa Rica secured by borrower equity.

Simply put, gap financing, otherwise known as bridge financing or interim financing, allows developers with equity to “bridge the gap” to the point where conventional bank loans are available. Borrowers who own real estate with high development potential can use gap financing to get their projects off the ground quickly and reach the point where an established bank will finance their projects at conventional interest rates.

Gap Investors brings years of experience in investing in Costa Rica, with legal, marketing and development expertise working to make your investment pay off.

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A Florida-based developer is trying to create the first-ever large-scale, yacht-friendly resort project on the little-traveled Atlantic coast of Costa Rica.Isla Moin is located near the city of Limon, a 30-minute flight from the capital or, as marketing materials quaintly describe, a “breath-taking” 2 1/2- hour drive through the mountains. Developed by SolerPazos Group, a company founded by Costa Rica native Jose Soler, with Costa Rica construction company Edificar as a partner, the first phase of the 200-acre project calls for the construction of more than 200 housing units around canals and beachfront, as well as a 123-slip marina.

Eventually, Isla Moin is expected to include 800 condominiums, villas and estate homes, a luxury hotel and room for 500 boats.

While new projects sprout up seemingly every week on Costa Rica’s Pacific Coast, developers have practically ignored the jungle-covered Atlantic coast, which has little in the way of roads or infrastructure. And there is not much in the way of attractions for the yacht crowd. From Mexico south there are few docks, nevertheless deep-bay mega-yacht moorings below the hurricane line.Beyond the marina, the developers are pitching the affordability of the project, offering “all of the benefits of Costa Rica at a fraction of the recently inflated prices of Costa Rican real estate,” according to the marketing materials. In the pre-construction phase, units are priced between $175,000 and $2 million. Marina slips, the real prize, range from $100,000 for a 40-foot slot to $1.5 million for a 250-foot parking spot.

Local coverage notes other marina projects have faced local protests, but it appears Isla Moin is “going to happen with little opposition.” SolerPazos hopes to begin construction later this year.

From small coffee shops to upscale restaurants, San Jose’s store owners know just how important it is to provide their increasing number of mobile customers with the digital services that they love so much. Indeed, many local San José businesses already proudly display the ubiquitous “WiFi Hotspot” stickers on their front doors. According to many area companies, non-profit organizations, and public institutions, Costa Rica’s capital city is well on its way to becoming Central America’s first “digital city.”

The IX Latin American Meeting of Digital Cities began in San José this Monday, June 16, and will continue through Wednesday, June 18. Activities include a Microsoft presentation on a Platform of Service to Citizens, which will use technology to allow citizens and residents to sign up for information and city services easily.

“The idea is to unify the service window, Internet, and and cell phones with the aim of making citizen life easier,” Microsoft’s Latin American Public Sector manager, Rubén Bravo, said. The program will begin in San José, but if it is successful, it has the potential to spread to all local governments in Costa Rica. Read the rest of this entry »

Soon Costa Ricans will be serving Chinese and Argentinian beans as the government places China and Argentina ahead of the United States and Canada for bean import.

The manager in charge of the bean program for the Ministerio de Agricultura, Juan Sibaja, said that the monitoring of bean sales indicate that there are more black beans on the market than the red and that Honduras and Nicaragua are out for purchases as those countries have their own shortage problems.

Sibaja added that 75% of all beans to be consumed in Costa Rica after July will be imported, while 25% of the beans on the supermarket shelves will be from local production

Responding to criticism that they are letting drunk drivers caught by the Tránsito (traffic) police go free, a group of judges representing the judges of traffic court of the Poder Judicial, denied that the charges.

Magistrates Liz Mauren Tencio, Norman Rojas and Ricardo Baltodano, spoke to the press, saying that of the 38.998 drunk drivers that have come before the courts since 2005, only 763 have been set free, had their license returned and not sanctioned.

Two men caught with US$372,000 in cash near the Costa Rica-Panama border are telling police they just wanted to buy some bananas.

Police say the two appeared to be nervous when their car was stopped by police over the weekend. So officials searched the vehicle and found the cash in a briefcase.

Police commander Freddy Hernandez said in a statement Monday that the men told officials they were banana brokers.

But police are holding them on possible money laundering charges.
Bananas cost about US$1.65 a pound in Costa Rica.

Cuba on Friday sent an American fugitive back to the United States where he is wanted on charges of child sex tourism and possessing child pornography.

The Cuban Foreign Ministry said Leonard Auerbach entered Cuba via Mexico on April 8 and was detained on May 7 based on information provided by U.S. authorities.

In an April press release, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Auerbach, a 61-year-old California resident and mortgage finance expert, had been placed on its “most wanted list” for having sexual relations with and possessing pornographic photos of a girl in Costa Rica.

The Cuban government said it took action because “the crimes of which he is accused in the United States are of grave character and strongly fought by our authorities.”

It said it found no evidence he committed a crime in Cuba.

The U.S. Interests Section in Havana had no immediate comment.

Cuba and the United States, 90 miles part, do not have diplomatic relations, but Cuba has repatriated U.S. fugitives in the past.

U.S. Southern Command (Southcom) announced it is constructing a health clinic in the Talamanca region of Costa Rica, near the Panama border.

A 345-square-meter clinic in Limón province will be built in the community of El Bambú, according to a U.S. Embassy press release. Construction is scheduled to start this month.

In recent months, Southcom has become increasingly active in Costa Rica. In February, the agency announced plans to double counter-narcotics funding to Costa Rica to $2 million.

In April, they announced a $250,000 contribution to the construction a new Coast Guard base in Puntarenas. Also that month, the U.S. Navy reactivated its Fourth Fleet, dormant since the 1950s, and placed it under Southcom’s command to patrol waters off of Central and South America.

Southcom is a military office that coordinates the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard under the leadership of a four-star general. It is responsible for “contingency planning, operations, and security cooperation for Central and South America, the Caribbean, Cuba, the Bahamas and their territorial waters,” according to its Web site.

Costa Rica came from behind to draw Grenada 2-2 in their CONCACAF second-round qualifier for the 2010 World Cup on Saturday.

The Spice Boyz took an early two-goal lead with goals from Patrick Modeste in the 20th minute and Jason Roberts seven minutes later.

But Costa Rica fought back with a man advantage to score in each half through Amando Alonso in the 42nd minute and Junior Diaz in the 75th minute.

Grenada played with 10 men for most of the second half after midfielder Ricky Charles was red-carded in the 50th minute.

The teams will meet in Costa Rica on June 21.

Costa Rica’s national soccer team will play Grenada tomorrow in a qualifying match for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.

The Ticos traveled yesterday to the Caribbean country with a heavy burden, failing to have won a game all year. And after 11 non-wins, hotly contested coach Harnán Medford was not overly optimistic ahead of tomorrow’s match.

We’re facing a club that beat the best team in the Caribbean, Jamaica (in a friendly 2-1). Let me say it again: It won’t be easy, Medford told reporters yesterday.

Costa Rica’s 20-strong roster includes Rolando Fonseca, considered the country’s all-time best striker, who plays for Guatemalan club Comunicaciones.

Tico strongmen also include striker Bryan Ruiz and midfielder Randall Azofeifa, both of Belgium’s Gent club, as well as Chicago Fire defender Gonzalo Segares and Danish team Odense Boldklub’s midfielder Cristian Bolaños.

The Costa Rica-Grenada rematch is set for June 21 at Ricardo Saprissa Stadium in the northern San José district, Tibás.

The Foreign Trade Promoter (PROCOMER in Spanish) aims at selling fruit pulp in the Chinese market as one of the options to diversify Costa Rican exports to that Asian nation. The intention is the Chinese use the pulp as the base for fruit juices, explained Cynthia Arias, PROCOMER economic analyst. She added that, so far, coffee and decoration plants have led exports to China.

Great Britain will donate $2.3 million to fund a study of the economic impact of climate change in Central America, the British ambassador to Costa Rica Thomas John Kennedy disclosed. The study will last some 15 months and it aims at showing the region’s nations the cost of not acting now and supporting a joint mitigation strategy. In 2006, Britain disclosed the Stern Report, which showed that it is necessary to invest 1 percent of the world Gross Domestic Product to mitigate climate change, and that otherwise the world would live a recession amounting to 20 percent of the global GDP.

Endangered scarlet macaws born in captivity are reproducing in the wild for the first time on Costa Rica’s southern Pacific Coast.

The ZooAve Center for the Rescue of Endangered Species has released 100 of the birds into the wild in the last decade. But biologists didn’t spot offspring until last year, biologist Laura Fournier said.

Since then, they have recorded 22 chicks born in the wild, and four more scarlet macaw couples have laid eggs, Fournier said.

The parrots once occupied all of Costa Rica. But hunting and poaching dramatically cut their population, and they now are found only in two national parks along the coast.

The biologists’ goal is for 200 birds to populate an isolated coastal area.

Chicks are hatched at the ZooAve center in La Garita northwest of the capital, San Jose. At six months, they take a 200-mile trip to the southern city of Golfito, then travel by boat to a beach and finally the isolated San Josecito conservation center far from human settlements. There they spend up to three more months in captivity before being released.

The parrots, which live up to 80 years, can start reproducing at age 7. Of ZooAve’s 86 scarlet macaws, 54 are in the reproduction program.

Many parrots in the breeding program were confiscated by environmental authorities or turned in by their former owners. Some can’t leave the sanctuary because they don’t know how to survive in the wild.

“Many don’t even know how to feed themselves,” Fournier said.

The Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid actor has been suffering from the potentially fatal disease for several months and just weeks ago had to pull out of directing a big-screen adaptation of John Steinbeck’s book Of Mice and Men.

A friend of the actor - who used to be a chain-smoker - told the National Enquirer magazine: “We have known he is seriously ill for several weeks but his loved ones are being very protective and saying very little.”

The legendary actor was reportedly diagnosed with the cancer at the New York’s Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, a few hours drive from his Connecticut home, where he lives with his wife Joanne Woodward.

In March, a cancer patient claimed he had regularly seen Newman at the hospital.

He said: “He’s been there a lot, he’s even worked out in the waiting room, doing the squat thrusts. Last time, he was in there he had a long beard. Joanne is there waiting for him and being very sweet with the assistants.”

However, his spokesperson played down his hospitalisation, saying Newman was “being treated for athlete’s foot and hair loss”.

Newman has previously denied reports he has cancer.