Costa Rica information, activities and news
The project to develop a marina at Puerto Viejo, on the Caribbean, was filed. The facility was to be developed by Grupo Caribeño Internacional whose chairman, Jan Kalina, said that the $40-million, 100-berth marina was objected by several organizations, “a minority from outside Puerto Viejo”. However, he pointed out, the firm might renew the project some time in the future.
The Technical Council of Civic Aviation allocated $20 million to improve landing strips and set up fences at seven airports. Four local terminals, Nosara, Puerto Jimenez, Parismina and Tortuguero, and the international ones at Limon, Pavas and Liberia will benefit from the program. On the other hand, the Civil Aviation Bureau will receive this month the master plan for the new international airport in the South Pacific, which will be located at Sierpe, Osa, and whose construction will be launched next year.
The Bank of Inter-American Development (BID) agreed to lend Costa Rica $850 million to build or improve roads, bicycle paths, the new international airport in the Costa Rican South Pacific, and the Metropolitan Electric Railroad, among other works. The loan has to be approved by the congressional, a fact that prompted president Oscar Arias to request from the deputies to the Legislative Assembly to approve it at the soonest possible. He pointed out that the country has waited for a long time to improve infrastructure, thus the opportunity has to be take proper advantage of. The Government of Costa Rica has to supplement the loan with a $200-million counterpart, thus taking the overall amount to $1,050 million. The first installment, for $300 million and $75 million as the Costa Rican counterpart, would be used to improve 500 kilometers of roads.
If you thought that gasoline prices in Costa Rica would be dropping anytime soon, given the drop in the price of crude oil on international markets, you would be wrong.
According to the Autoridad Reguladora de los Servicios Públicos (Aresep) – the regulator of public prices and services – the method used to fix gasoline prices is once a month.
The director energey of the Aresep, Álvaro Barrantes , explained that the method to adjust gasoline prices is based on the international price and the exchange rate, however, there is a gap.
Gasoline price adjustments can only be made every second Friday of the month and it uses the average price of crude for the past 30 days. So, when the Aresep gives its approval following the second Friday request it does not reflect the crude oil price at the moment, but of days previous.
Complicating matters is the time the Aresep needs to analyze the request, taking into account a public consultation, which can take up to a month.
“The prices we have today has a gap of one or two months with respect to the international market”, said Barrantes.
Currently the Aresep is studying the latest request made by the State refinery, RECOPE, on August 11 asking for a drop of ¢1 colon for a litre of super, ¢5 for regular and ¢3 for diesel. In addition, the regulator is analyzing an increase of the tax on fuels of ¢5 colones for a litre of super, ¢5 for regular and ¢3 for diesel.
Many feel that that request is a joke, mocking Costa Ricans who have seen record fuel prices this year, when prices have been falling in other countries.
Currently, a litre of super gasoline sells for ¢732 colones; regular ¢721; and diesel ¢726.
Gasoline prices in Costa Rica are uniform across the country, even though in Guanacaste and Puntarenas regular gasoline is being sold with a mixture of ethanol.
According to a study done by Mercer in 2008, Costa Rica occupies the position 139 in the rankings of global cost of living. The aspects evaluated were the following: food, transportation, clothing, household durable goods, cost of housing and entertainment. Even though the cost of living in Costa Rica is substantially lower than that on the United States, it´s the highest is the Central American isthmus, this, according to the Central American Council of Consumer Protection.
The Costa Rican government recognized that they are going through difficult times due to the increments of the oil prices and the food crisis. The cost of living augmentations made Costa Rica face, in the last trimester of this year, the highest inflation levels in the last 12 years.
The prices are not going down anytime soon. The cost of living in Costa Rica is forcing many low/middle class people to modify their meals and the way they live life. Some “ticos” claim they are barely eating chicken or “olla de carne” anymore.
However, there are ways to overcome the situation, such as understanding and planning your expenses, buying only necessary things, turning off the lights you are not using, among others; learning how to live cheap is a skill that can be developed and hopefully enforced.
As Costa Rica became one of the preferred destinations for vacation homes it has also witnessed a significant deterioration of its natural resources in exchange for economic growth.
If you are about to select an exotic real estate development in Costa Rica as the ideal vacation home, please double check the information you have, make sure you obtain a professional opinion from an expert in the field. Currently the Costa Rican Environmental Tribunal or TAA (acronym for its Spanish name Tribunal Administrativo Ambiental) has investigated 40 real estate developments located all across Costa Rica, the results were alarming: 8 closed, 19 paralized and 13 are currently under investigations.
Costa Rica Real Estate Law is almost a science, it requires multiple bureacratic procedures, extensive lobbying and inside collaboration, as the most common practice is that if the environmental permits are not prepared through the consultation of an officer of the environmental agency, the chances are that your project will never get them.
To add extra drama to the chaotic permit application process, now various projects that obtained construction permits will have to suffer of a new degree of uncertainty as their permits will be investigated, raising the question of the level of transparency of government decisions in Costa Rica.
So if you are planning to invest in Costa Rica, make sure that you are provided of a clear, binding agreement by a reputable developer and that your legal counsel approves it.
In our opinion, the implementation of the TAA should have been done 10 years ago, it is still not to late, the real estate development industry will suffer for a period of time but in the long term Costa Rica will move towards a better version of sustainable development that will contribute with our global environment.
