Archive for January 5th, 2010
Tuesday, January 5th, 2010
Colors, flavours and fragrances provider Sensient Technologies Corp (NYSE:SXT) reported on Monday the inauguration of a new state-of-the-art facility in Alajuela, Costa Rica.
This new flavour centre in Costa Rica will serve as the company’s base of Central American and Caribbean operations and the facility includes laboratories for beverage and dairy applications and savoury flavours.
The plant has been reinforced with product application teams and a quality control laboratory. The site will also develop products for local markets by blending flavours.
The Sensient business office also includes a culinary centre for flavourists. In addition, sales personnel and flavour technologists will be on site to service customers manufacturing beverages, savory foods, dairy products and sweets and snacks.
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Tuesday, January 5th, 2010
A Salina woman falls victim to a sweepstakes scam from Costa Rica.
Back in October the 55-year old woman got a phone call from someone claiming they were part of the “American Prize Network.” A man in Costa Rica telling her she had won a second place prize worth $500,000 was only the beginning. After some time passed with no prize money sent to Salina, the woman contacted the bogus company only to be told there had been a mistake and she was really the first place winner in the drawing.
The woman was then asked on several occasions to send money to “American Prize Network” to pay tax on her $1.2 million dollar winnings. The woman contacted police when no prize money arrived.
According to police, the women sent over $7,600 in cash in several transactions to Costa Rica as well as jewels to Texas. Salina Police say the investigation is on going.
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Tuesday, January 5th, 2010
The new year is here and so is a wave of price increases for services like taxis, buses, gasoline, water and electricity. All increases were approved by the Autoridad Reguladora de los Servicios Públicos (Aresep) in 2009 and take effect in the new year.
Water today goes up an average of 15.2%, while the cost of sanitary sewers goes up on average 36.7%. The new rates will be included in the utility bills by the Acueductos y Alcantarillados (AyA).
What the increase means is a family consuming an average of 25 cubic metres of water a month will have to pay an additional ¢1.468 colones a month, bringing the total average bill to ¢9.298 from ¢7.830 colones monthly.
The increase affects some 500.000 customers.
Taxi fares also saw an increase at the beginning of the year. In 2010 the initial cost of taxi service is ¢510 colones, up from ¢455 and each additional kilometre costs ¢95 colones, up from ¢55.
Bus fares on almost all routes around the country also went up with the entrance of the new year. The average increase is 3.85%, the actual increase is dependent on the route. Check your local bus operator for the new prices before boarding a bus.
The cost of sending mail also went up in the new year.
Correos de Costa Rica has increased its rates depending on the country of destination. For example, sending a letter not weighing more than 20 grams, anywhere in Costa Rica now costs ¢225, up from ¢140. Sending a similar letter to any destination in Central America costs ¢330 colones, up from ¢160.
The cost of sending packages is also up. Since the Correos de Costa Rica is not a “courier service”, rates for packages falls in the jurisdiction of the Aresep.
In the middle of January the latest approved increase in gasoline prices takes effect, increasing the cost of a litre of super gasoline by ¢14 colones.
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Tuesday, January 5th, 2010
The Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) put into operation a new wind farm last month.
The wind farm is located in Guanacaste, near the volcano Miravalles, and consists of 55 wind turbines with a capacity of 49.5 megawatts.
Thirty wind turbines began operating in September. That wind power facility will supply about 100,000 users. It also has the advantage of being less polluting than electricity produced by diesel.
The wind farm is located on a 500-hectare property, located 30 miles north of the city of Bagaces.
The work was executed under the funding scheme BOT (build, operate and transfer, according to its acronym in English) by the company Guanacaste SA wind farm. The wind energy facility was transferred to ICE for operation and maintenance.
ICE reported that the connection of the wind farm to the National Electric System (SEN) is done through a substation that is connected with the transmission line Miravalles Liberia. With this contribution, the wind energy capacity in Costa Rica increased by 70%.
The project includes the construction of 55 wind turbines. Each tower is built on isolated circular plates, which have an outer diameter of 11.2 or 15.2 m (depending on whether the foundation is superficial or not) with a rebuff to 1.6 m deep, with average volumes 150 m3 of concrete per plate.
For the physical-mechanical characteristics of the land, 24 plates carried as part of the construction of 14 foundation piles cast in place preexcavados and approximately 15 m deep. Each tower is connected to the control center via underground unseen, called Energy Collector.
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Tuesday, January 5th, 2010
Costa Rican international defender Roy Miller has signed with the Red Bulls, according to the La Nacion newspaper in Costa Rica.
Miller, 25, has played with Rosenborg, signing a three-year contract with the Norwegian club in Feburary, 2008 before he was loaned to Örgryte IS last year.
He can play center back or at left and right fullback as well. Erik Soler, recently named Red Bulls sporting director and general manager, is from Norway.
According to the newspaper, Miller will join the Red Bulls on Jan. 11.
Miller originally played professionally with Cartaginés in Costa Rica before joining Bodo/Glimt in Norway.
He has played in four World Cup qualifiers in the 2006 and 2010 competitions and participated in the FIFA Under-17 World Cup in 2001, performing in four matches.
Because Costa Rican failed to reach the World Cup — finishing fourth in the CONCACAF final round and losing a special playoff to Uruguay — Miller would be available for the entire MLS season.
The Red Bulls had no comment on the report.
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Tuesday, January 5th, 2010
New report provides detailed analysis of the Travel market
After increasing from 2.06mn in 2006 to 2.29mn in 2007, the report expects arrivals to have increased to 2.51mn in 2008 before dipping down to 2.29mn in 2009. Arrival numbers are forecast to tick up again in 2010, and to grow to 3.5mn in 2014, at the end of our forecast period. The majority of tourists visit Costa Rica during the peak season (January-May) and come from the Americas. Arrivals from the country’s three most important source markets - the US, Nicaragua and Canada - increased steadily during 2004 to 2007. However, looking at the inbound tourism data by region, although 2008 continued to trend upwards in North America and Latin America, the report is forecasting arrivals numbers from both regions to decrease by 9.45% and 8.60%, respectively, in 2009. The next most important source markets in terms of arrivals are, in order, Panama, Mexico and Spain.
The main growth drivers for the industry are ecotourism and health tourism. Costa Rica has 32 national parks, eight biological reserves, 13 forest reserves and 51 wildlife refuges. The industry is estimated to suffer slightly in 2009 due to the ongoing recession, particularly in the US, and the H1N1 virus (swine flu), however it is forecast to see relatively quick turnaround beginning in 2010. The continued expansion of the Daniel Oduber Quirós International Airport in the north and the growing amount of chartered flights from Europe all have the potential to drive growth in the market. Furthermore, the planned development of the Caribbean province, looks set to bring more tourists to this less-developed Costa Rican province. Indeed, already the province’s port has served as the finish line for the Transat Jacques Vabre sailboat race in 2009 and the race is scheduled to finish there in 2011, 2013 and 2015 as well. The port has also been added as a port of call in 2010 to two luxury cruise liners’ schedules.
Costa Rica’s tourism industry is a major contributor to the economy, accounting for about 7.8% of GDP in direct terms in 2008 and nearly 3% of total employment in 2006 - 49,000 individuals - according to data from the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). However, the industry’s contribution to GDP is forecast to steadily decline, from 7.1% in 2009 to just 4.6% in 2014. Collective government expenditure on tourism was an estimated US$29.7mn in 2008, a 4% increase year-on-year (y-o-y). Collective government expenditure is forecast to slump slightly in 2009 to 27.9mn, bouncing back to 30.0mn in 2011. Expenditure is then forecast to rise to 35.5mn by the end of the forecast period in 2014. The government has proposed a tax on inbound airfares. The legislation, which has yet to pass in the Assembly, requests the addition of a fee of US$15 to all airfares, to replace the current 3% hotel tax. Part of the revenue from the tax, which is expected to be more than US$80mn a year, will fund some activities of Instituto Costarricense de Turismo (Costa Rican Tourism Board, ICT), including marketing, promotion and planning. The change in taxation came about due to the increasing amount of condominium and other private rentals that were not included under the umbrella of the hotel tax. New hotel developments are ongoing in the country, with major international companies including Intercontinental Hotels Group, Marriott Hotels & Resorts and Barceló constructing hotels near the beaches and in urban centers.
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