Archive for February, 2009
Friday, February 27th, 2009
Although the price of crude oil on international markets has dropped and the state refinery, Recope, is being investigated for exaggerated profits, the price of a litre of gasoline at the country’s pumps continues to go up.
On March 14, the price of a litre of super gasoline will increase by ¢54 colones and regular ¢48. Diesel, on the other hand, will drop ¢18 colones.
The increase is not yet official, it still requires the signature of the Regulador General and published in the official government newsletter, La Gaceta.
This will be third consecutive increase of gasoline prices this year.
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Friday, February 27th, 2009
Banco de Costa Rica (BCR) reported on Thursday the release of more than ¢100 billion (nearly $18 million) in housing credit loans this week, money that could ultimately help as many as 6,000 families who wish to build or buy a home.
Home-buyers can apply for the loans at any BCR branch nationwide, and applications will take an average of 15 days to be processed, said a BCR statement released this week.
The measure is part of the Mano Solidaria (helping hand) program created after President Oscar Arias in January requested a yearlong 2 percent decrease in interest rates for loans for buying houses and for small, medium and big companies, as well as personal credit.
For a ¢20 million (about $35,736) loan, a person would have to make payments of ¢250,000 ($447) a month. Prior to this program, loan recipients had to make payments of a little more than ¢300,000 ($536).
Basic requirements for an application include photocopies of both sides of the national identification card, proof of address (a utility bill receipt) and a statement verifying the applicant’s monthly income.
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Friday, February 27th, 2009
Greenhouse tomatoes from Costa Rica should arrive in the U.S. by mid-May.
“Costa Rica is lining up to fill a gap between the winter and spring tomato greenhouse deal,” said Paul Mastronardi, executive vice president for Kingsville, Ontario-based Mastronardi Produce Ltd., which is marketing the imported tomatoes.
Mauricio Blanco, president of the greenhouse group exporting the tomatoes, the Association of Crop Producers under Controlled Medium, Alfaro Ruiz, Alajuela, Costa Rica, said 15 growers plan to ship tomatoes this season, and by next year, 22 more growers are scheduled to join the ranks. (more…)
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Friday, February 27th, 2009
The Costa Rican government has seized a commercial fishing boat caught with its fishing lines inside the waters of the Isla del Coco National Marine Park, one of the country’s most prized protected areas.
Park guards boarded the boat and released three live sharks and a mahi-mahi back into the sea, according to a statement from MarViva, a non-governmental sea conservation organization.
The boat, called the Zaragoza II, was caught by the MarViva I, a patrol boat belonging to the conservation NGO. The organization conducts regular patrols with park guards from the Environment, Energy and Telecommunications Ministry (MINAET) aboard.
The Zaragoza II was caught 8.5 nautical miles from the island of Isla del Coco, which lies 365 miles off Costa Rica’s Pacific coast. The Isla del Coco National Park encompasses the island and the biologically rich waters surrounding it within 12 nautical miles of the shore.
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Friday, February 27th, 2009
The Costa Rican government on Tuesday signed an agreement with the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) to implement a joint program to prevent HIV-AIDS, Xinhua reported.
The program will focus on youngsters living in Puntarenas and Limon, two main coastal cities of Costa Rica. Costa Rican President Oscar Arias attended the signing ceremony. A study on youngsters in the two cities regarding HIV-AIDS was released during the event.
The study, which was based on a sample of 800 teenagers between 13 and 18 years old from both cities, showed that there is a formidable lack of knowledge about methods to prevent HIV-AIDS among the young in the region. (more…)
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Friday, February 27th, 2009
Women drivers all around always get a bad rap. We have all heard about the danger of a woman behind a wheel or of how, at the scene of an accident, a woman must have been involved. No different in Costa Rica. However, the numbers tell a different story.
According to the figures released by the Consejo de Seguridad Vial de Costa Rica of the 597 traffic accidents registered last year, on 23 women were involved in the accident. The other 551 or 92% involved men.
Of course, in Costa Rica the probability of men being involved in traffic accidents is greater as there are four times more men drivers than women.
Cosevi records indicate that in 2008 there were 146.580 male drivers registered, compared to only 39.732 women.
If we do simple math, if 25% of the women are drivers then they should be responsible for nearly 150 accidents. And, if we take the number of accidents involving women, multiplying it by four, women would be involved for only 15% of the accidents, much less than the quarter that would be attributed to them.
Neither of the two sexes are free of committing an error behind the wheel.
Specialists say that men are involved in more accidents as the male hormones take over and lead them to take more risks on the road.
In Costa Rica, “machismo” is an important part of driving and anyone who doesn’t agree with that, take a look at driver behind the vehicles that are taking more risks, cutting off other drivers and the vehicle themselves.
In the end, the numbers speak for themselves, women are better drivers.
So, the next time your curse out that woman driver who just cut you off, remember there are 24 men doing exactly the same.
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Thursday, February 26th, 2009
The property news coming out of Costa Rica is by no means a cause for celebration but it is not all gloomy either. Costa Rica still remains among the most popular second home destinations for U.S. citizens. The country has successfully branded itself as a premiere eco-tourism destination and the tourism sector is expected to continue growing. Low cost of living and property taxes still attract adventurous retirees who are looking for cheaper options without too many compromises.
However, the Central American country has not been immune to the global economic crisis and it has been particularly sensitive to the U.S. slowdown. After all, some 60 percent of tourists arriving into the country come from the United States according to ERA-Costa Rica, a global franchiser of residential real estate brokerages. The U.S. also purchases the majority of Costa Rican exports. This makes the country overly sensitive to U.S. economic winds. (more…)
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Thursday, February 26th, 2009
Robert Wilson remembered as ‘decent human being’
Local lawyer Robert Wilson was killed in an apparent swimming accident Wednesday morning while vacationing in Costa Rica.
Wilson, 60, was in the Central American country with his wife, Margaret, said Ontario Court Justice Charles Anderson, a longtime friend and former partner.
Wilson, who was staying at Jaco Beach, had gone out for “just a last splash” when he was suddenly tunnelled over by a large wave, said Anderson. The wave knocked him down and he apparently hit his head against a rock and drowned.
An emotional Anderson was preparing to fly out to Costa Rica Thursday with his wife to help Wilson’s family.
Staff at the Canadian Embassy in Costa Rica referred media calls to the Department of Foreign Affairs in Ottawa.
Foreign Affairs spokesman Emma Welford confirmed that consular officials in Costa Rica were dealing with the apparent drowning of a Canadian citizen and providing support to the family, but could not disclose any further information because of the Privacy Act.
Anderson and Wilson went to school together at Queen’s University, quickly became friends and decided to open a practice together while articling at separate firms in Ottawa.
The judge said he learned of the tragedy near the end of his day’s list in Kemptville court and had to stop for the day.
“I couldn’t do it.”
When they started out, Wilson wanted to focus on real estate while Anderson went into litigation, so the two were a good fit, Anderson said.
The pair opened the Brockville firm in 1975 and worked together for 15 years until Anderson was appointed a judge.
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Thursday, February 26th, 2009
Telecommunications companies looking to compete with the state telecom ICE will get their permits in May or June and then have a year to set up shop in Costa Rica.
A total of nine companies are interested in offering telephone and internet services in an open market in Costa Rica, among them are Worldcomm, Amnet, Ticom, R&H international telecom and Intertel worldwide.
All have applied to the Superintendencia de Telecomunicaciones (Sutel), the newly created telecommunications regulator. (more…)
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Thursday, February 26th, 2009
When Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced in July 2007 that his government would make re-engagement with the countries of the Americas a priority, Luis Kalaff, deputy head of mission at the Embassy of the Dominican Republic, rejoiced.
“It’s a big deal, I think it’s very important,” Mr. Kalaff says. “We can see [already] how Canada takes more time on our country.”
After four and a half years at the embassy in Ottawa, Mr. Kalaff is departing next month to become deputy head of mission at the Dominican Embassy in Costa Rica. He arrived in Ottawa back in November 2004, when Liberal Paul Martin was prime minister. (more…)
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Wednesday, February 25th, 2009
Manuel Antonio National Park, the second-most-visited park in Costa Rica, could have to close its gates this week after wastewater contamination was detected on its beaches, the Health Ministry said Sunday.
The ministry issued the closure order Feb. 12 and gave the Environment and Energy Ministry 10 days to correct the problem, which implies building a wastewater treatment plant.
The park, located on Costa Rica’s central Pacific coast, is one of the country’s best-known natural areas and the park that produces the most income for the state, given that it is visited each year by thousands of tourists.
The Health Ministry inspection revealed that sewage and wastewater from the house where the park rangers live was being dumped directly into the forest without being treated beforehand, and also that the septic tank for the sanitary services for tourists had broken allowing the sewage to leak out and collect in a lagoon inside the park causing a horrific stench.
Park manager Belfort Cubillo told the La Nacion newspaper that the problem of the wastewater had been identified a year ago, but he said that officials had not allocated enough money to deal with it.
Admission fees to Manuel Antonio National Park last year totaled $1.81 million, but the money went to the Treasury and the park only received $352,000, which it used to pay salaries and provide basic services.
The Environment and Energy Ministry plans to ask the Health Ministry for a postponement of the closure order to prevent the park from being shut. EFE
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Wednesday, February 25th, 2009
A new United Nations study shows that teenagers in Costa Rica’s two port cities know little about the risks of AIDS and HIV, even as they engage in unsafe sex.
The majority of teens ages 13 through 18 in the Caribbean port town of Limón and the Central Pacific port town of Puntarenas do not know how to put on a condom and do not know how HIV is transmitted.
Levels of awareness are extremely low in Limón, and even lower in Puntarenas, the report concluded. The situation in Puntarenas is dire.
Perhaps most worrisome, 14 percent of teens in Puntarenas and 6 percent in Limón said they have had sexual relations against their will in the past six months.
That’s rape. There is no other way to describe it, said Marco Fournier, who worked on the study.
Nearly 62 percent in Puntarenas and 57 percent in Limón did not know how HIV is transmitted. Some 83 percent in Puntarenas and 72 percent in Limón did not know how to put on a condom.
The study, which used a 400-person sample in each city, is part of a project by the United Nations Children’s Fund, the United Nations Population Fund and the Culture and Youth Ministry to promote healthy sexual practices.
The United Nations has donated a total of $156,630 for the project, whose total cost is $425,000. The project’s coordinators are looking for more funding.
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Wednesday, February 25th, 2009
Costa Rica’s economy may slow to a standstill this year as foreign direct investment drops “severely” and demand for the Central American country’s exports wanes, President Oscar Arias said.
“The rate of growth this year is going to be between zero and one percent,” Arias said in an interview in his office in San Jose yesterday. That’s less than half the central bank’s forecast for growth of 2.2 percent in the $30 billion economy.
As part of a recovery plan announced last month, Arias said the government will seek to borrow more from international lenders, raise pensions by 15 percent and build schools and roads to create jobs. The government may also inject more capital into state-owned banks to ease access to credit, he said. (more…)
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Wednesday, February 25th, 2009
The other night on the NBC prime time world news there was a special about a group of centenarians who live in an area located in Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula. Scientists say their longevity is due to a clean environment, exercise, a healthy diet and above all their lifestyle. Furthermore, all Costa Ricans who reach eighty years of age, live longer on the average than any other people in the world.
Most likely another factor that contributes to this statistic is the cradle-to-grave health care provided by the Costa Rican government. Besides having a large number of centenarians the country has a longevity rate on a par with any first world country including the United States.
What does this say about Costa Rica? Basically the country is a very healthy place to live. In fact, most foreigners who move here add years to their life. I do remember when I used to visit my relatives in the States and they would remark how good I looked. They said it must have been from the good life in Costa Rica.
I guess its the fresh fruits and vegetables, less stress and above all lifestyle which also contribute to foreigners and others living longer here. After all it is all about lifestyle. It really is the lifestyle that ultimately draws people here and was the main factor in my move almost 30 years ago. In Costa Rica you can really have more for less and have more fun in the process. There are a wealth of activities from which to choose to keep you busy and happy. It is also very easy to make new friends here. You will have NO excuse for being bored. The days just don’t seem to be long enough to pack in all of the exciting activities.
Living here reminds me of the title of a popular movie with Jack Nicholson, “As Good as it Gets.” One would be hard press to find a place that offers more.
I have a very spiritual acquaintance who said upon arrive in Costa Rica for the first time, “I stepped of the plane and immediately felt a sense of peacefulness in the air.” Perhaps it is this spirit or vibe that makes Costa Rica one of the most magical and healthy places in the world to live.
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Wednesday, February 25th, 2009
A surprise drop in coffee prices late last year has left some Costa Rican coffee millers in the lurch, forcing them to sell the crop below cost and raising fears of shutdowns if prices fall further.
The CoopeSabalito coffee cooperative, close to the border with Panama, paid farmers high prices in advance for coffee cherries harvested at the end of last year, but now it has to sell the processed beans to roasters at a much lower price.
“(Our situation) is quite critical, both in terms of the high cost of production and financing difficulties,” the cooperative’s president Hernan Murillo told Reuters.
The cooperative bought coffee from its more than 200 associated farmers before the financial markets collapsed, pulling down commodities prices.
The March arabica coffee contract KCH9 slipped from a high of $1.60 per pound in July to around $1.12 this month.
The coop paid out more than it is getting back and is now worried about its own survival. (more…)
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