Archive for January 26th, 2010
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
Costa Rican growers report lower sales to Starbucks
U.S. coffee giant Starbucks Corp has reduced its purchases of Costa Rican coffee this year, the head of the Central American nation’s coffee association said on Monday.
The company, which is known for paying top-dollar for high-quality coffee, may be buying less to reduce its inventories, Ronald Peters, the executive director of Icafe, said.
“(Starbucks) has bought less coffee in Costa Rica this year,” said Peters.
“Perhaps because they have delayed purchases, Costa Rican producers have also committed to supplying other buyers.”
Peters was unable to say by how much Starbucks buying had declined.
Half of Costa Rican coffee exports go to the United States, a share that Peters said has been maintained despite slowed sales to Starbucks.
Starbucks’ U.S. operations have struggled due to the recession but the firm posted its first quarterly rise in same-store sales in two years last week
Guatemalan growers reported in December that Starbucks had been slow to buy coffee and speculated at the time the delay was an attempt to secure lower prices.
Prices for Central American coffee have surged amid shortfalls in harvests from major producer Colombia. Colombia expects its crop will recover this season as a crop rejuvenation program starts to pay dividends.
Starbucks confirmed in a statement that it had made purchases for the 2009/10 growing season from Guatemala and Costa Rica along with other Latin American nations but declined to provide a forecast of its purchasing activity for competitive reasons.
The company said it buys about 75 percent of its coffee in Latin America and is normally one of the leading buyers of Costa Rican coffee.
Peters said Costa Rican producers have found buyers willing to pay a “satisfactory” price of $1.40 per lb in New York despite the slowdown in purchases by Starbucks.
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Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
Latin American beaches have a justifiable great reputation and many folks describe the Costa Rica beaches as among the highlights of their Costa Rica vacation. Costa Rica has some of the finest anywhere and offers something few other places can match. Great beaches on Pacific and Atlantic oceans so close together that either coast can be reached in just a few hours for tourists. Clean waters. White sand. Brown sand. Black sand. Coral beaches.
Most vacationers stay along the country’s Pacific coast and never visit the much less developed Caribbean beaches where the country got its name five centuries ago from an explorer we know as Christopher Columbus. Few travelers know about the captain called Christophe Colon by Ticos and even fewer look out over the very same beach where he came ashore in 1503. Whether you loved or hated History in high school, will be something special to imagine walking in the footsteps of history. (more…)
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Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
Ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya has accepted a deal to go to the Dominican Republic this week when his four-year term ends and his predecessor is sworn in, his top political adviser said.
Zelaya said that he will return “when there is a process of reconciliation”.
The ousted president said he can leave as an ordinary citizen on the 27th, leaving the Brazilian embassy where he has been in refuge since last September when he returned to Honduras.
On January 27, Porfirio Lobo takes office as the next Honduran president after winning the November 29 elections in that country.
Except for the United States, most of the other nations refuse to recognize the November elections as legitimate because the balloting took place under the regime of the puchistas, coup d’etat government.
Costa Rican president, Oscar Arias, is one Isthmus president who said he would not attend the Lobo swearing in ceremony on the 27th.
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Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
The Romanian national who was found wandering the streets of an upscale neighbourhood and leading police to a stash of 13 kilograms of cocaine, is having a field day with Costa Rican justice, as on two separate occasions, a judge has let the man free.
The first time, a judge of the Juzgado Penal de Heredia, allowed the man identified only by his last name Yovan, free after police found him naked and disoriented in the streets of Bosque Doña Rosa on the south side of Cariari in Heredia.
On that occasion, the man led police to his home where he had the stash of cocaine. However, a judge found that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to hold the man and set him free.
Two days later, agents of the Orgamismo de Investigación Judicial (OIJ) arrested the man, again, found loading a taxi with what appeared to be packages of drugs. Trained dogs were used by police to confirm the presence the illegal drugs the man was loading in the vehicle.
So, back he goes to the OIJ jail cells, this time for possession of drugs. However, a judge, again, set the man free, only this time on the condition that he sign in to the local court office and not leave the country.
Witnesses told police that the packages the man was loading into the vehicle appeared the same found by police days earlier.
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Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
Latin America’s mobile phone companies will have a rare chance to move into virgin territory as Costa Rica breaks a 40-year state monopoly and invites bids for a bandwidth auction.
Aside from Cuba, Costa Rica operates the last remaining state telecommunications monopoly in Latin America and an open telephone market was a condition of joining CAFTA, the free trade agreement binding the US with Central America and the Dominican Republic.
The country may only have a population of 4.5 million people but living standards are relatively high. Costa Rica and Panama are the only Central American countries within the World Bank’s category of upper middle income countries. But while Panama has 112 mobile-phone subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, Costa Rica has 42, the lowest penetration in the region.
Attracted by the potential for growth, the five leading Latin American and Caribbean cellular operators have already begun to hold talks with the Costa Rican regulator, Sutel.
The companies are América Móvil, the market leader controlled by the Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim; Spain’s Telefónica; the Luxembourg-based specialist in emerging markets Millicom; and two Caribbean operators: Digicel, the Jamaican operator controlled by the Irish magnate Denis O’Brien, and CWI, the international division of UK-based Cable & Wireless.
América Móvil, trading under the Claro brand, operates in all the other Central American countries. Telefónica, known to its consumers as Movistar, is in all countries except Honduras. Millicom’s Tigo brand is present in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. Digicel, a relative newcomer to Central America, has operations in Panama, Honduras and El Salvador. CWI operates mobile services only in Panama, but is dominant there.
All five are described by the International Telecommunications Union as strategic investors. “No other region has such a strong presence of multinational mobile groups,” it said in a recent study. “Collectively, these five strategic investors account for some three out of every four mobile subscriptions in Latin America and the Caribbean.”
Other, smaller, competitors could also emerge. Yota, a Russian company, which is building a Wi-Max network in Costa Rica and Huawei of China has installed Costa Rica’s recently launched thirdgeneration network.
George Miley, the Sutel president, has made it clear that there can be only three winners of the auction, one for each of the bandwidths on offer. If all goes well, the results should be known on May 5.
The three newcomers will only be allowed to offer wireless services in Costa Rica – rather than the triple- and even quadruple-play services available in other markets. And the winning companies will then have to compete alongside the state monopoly, the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE).
That will not necessarily be easy.
One of the main benefits provided by ICE has been price. “It is one of the cheapest cell phone services in the hemisphere,” says Fred Blaser, publisher of Costa Rica’s business daily, La República. “Another advantage is coverage throughout almost the entire country, which is not always the case in the rest of the region,” adds Mr Blaser.
But ICE has been hamstrung by clumsy customer service, a near-non-existent pre-payment option, a patchy service at busy times and not a single modern store offering options to buy phones
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Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
Much of central America is highly competitive for telecommunications, but one country where there is still a monopoly is Costa Rica. That means penetration is low, with only 1.8 million mobile phones in a country of 4.2 million — plenty of potential for new entrants, which explains the surge of interest from across Latin America in the three new licenses.
Costa Rica is holding the first ever bandwidth auction in February, ending a 40-year state monopoly, according to reports. The country needs to open the telecom market to meet the condition of joining the Central America Free Trade Agreement.
The fixed and mobile business in Costa Rica is still a monopoly of ICE, the Costa Rican Electricity Institute.
The winners of the auction will be allowed to offer wireless services but not fixed services.
Latin American and Caribbean cellular operators have already started talks with the Costa Rican regulator, Sutel. These include América Móvil, controlled by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, Spain’s Telefónica, Luxembourg-based Millicom, Caribbean operator Digicel and CWI, the son to be separated international division of Cable & Wireless.
The Financial Times suggests that Yota, a Russian company which is building a WiMax network in Costa Rica, may also bid in the auction. ICE is building a 3G network, with equipment supplied by Huawei.
Three licenses will be auctioned, with results expected in May 2010.
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Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
Costa Rica votes for a president and legislature in an election that could give the region its first female president. The National Liberation Party, the governing party of President Oscar Arias Sanchez, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, chose Laura Chinchilla as its candidate. A Costa Rica vice president until she quit to devote her time to campaigning, Chinchilla holds a healthy lead in the polls. Newcomer Otto Guevara from the fringe Libertarian Movement is in second place.
Candidates need 40 per cent or more to an April run-off.
The local press notes thatt Chinchilla would likely continue Arias’ policies. These include promoting free trade with North America, China, Singapore and the European Union. The new president will also be expected to deal with a surge in crime in the historically nonviolent nation.
As of Jun 2009, seven parties had signalled the intention of running for seats in the 57-seat unicameral legislature: the National Liberation Party; Citizen Action Party; Libertarian Movement; Social Christian Unity Party; and Broad Front Party.
A president, two vice presidents, and a unicameral Legislative Assembly are elected at the same time for a term of four years in a proportional representation system. As it stands, presidents may not run for immediate reelection, though they are eligible to serve again after sitting out two successive presidential terms.
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, Costa Rica, of all the Central American countries, is generally regarded as having the most stable and most democratic government. Its constitution of 1949 provides for a unicameral legislature, a fair judicial system, and an independent electoral body. Moreover, the constitution abolished the country’s army, gave women the right to vote, and provided other social, economic, and educational guarantees for all of its citizens. Throughout the 1970s and ’80s Costa Rica managed to stay relatively peaceful compared with its war-torn neighbours.
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Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
The United States housing debacle appears to have bottomed out. At last. From the peak in the summer of 2006, nearly three and a half years have elapsed.
Seems like nearly everyone in the Western world has been affected by the current economic troubles.
Of course, Costa Rica has felt the impact of the severe economic downturn in America and Europe. Property closings have slowed dramatically and in some areas along the Pacific coast cash-strapped Americans are selling their tropical homes at steep discounts.
Why was Costa Rica real estate so popular in the first place?
One of the smallest countries on the planet, Costa Rica is known throughout the world for its sandy beaches, picturesque coastal landscape, and its extraordinarily diverse fauna and flora. In fact, though it is only about the size of West Virginia, nearly 20%of the plant and animal species on earth are found in that Central American country.
Additionally, with the Atlantic and Pacific oceans bordering its east and west coasts, there is renowned deep sea fishing , diving, surfing, and sunsets, not to mention great parks and volcanoes.
Every year it is one of the hottest tourist destinations in Latin America. Most visitors are from Canada and the U.S., of course, but there are also thousands of European travelers. To help it serve the booming tourism industry, tourist attractions have popped up on both coasts. This in turn has caused a sharp rise inCosta Rica real estate value over the last decade or so since land is one commodity that is not plentiful there.
There is more, Costa Rica was one of the world’s first countries to understand the importance of sustainability. That is a big drawing card for many travelers. The country has adapted to its tourist patronage by developing and welcoming the international community. Condo construction, single family homes, and subdivisions catering to expats accelerated dramatically in the last 10 along the Gold Coast. With that boom came increased land prices.
Increasingly, retirees from the Western world see it as the perfect place to spend their later years. With mile after mile of sunny and sandy beaches, nearly 800 miles of coastline, beautiful mountains always close at hand, nice weather, a stable and democratic political system, low crime rates, excellent medical and dental providers and facilities, and high human development indices, many other people like to have a second home there, too.
What parts of Costa Rica have been the most popular for buyers or investors of Costa Rica real estate?
The north and central parts of the Pacific coast, in particular, with great weather and numerous amenities, has been the most popular area for tourists for a number of years. The need for developed property meeting the needs of the growing influx of vacationers and expat community has led to a large rise in prices of homes and land there. Hotels, resorts, restaurants, bars, and places for adult and family oriented fun have sprung up dramatically. This has led to an acute shortage of land in some places that has brought increased upward pressure on real estate prices.
The Central Valley have also been popular places because of the many conveniences like great malls, shopping, and terrific weather. About 40% of the country’s population centered near its capitol city, and increasingly short supplies of land, property values were less adversely affected than thePacific Coast.
What are the future prospects?
Despite today’s dismal economic climate in the States and Europe, the general perception is that there will be a large rebound in Costa Rica land prices.
Why? One reason is that, in comparison to the United States and the European continent, real estate prices, particularly on sunny, tropical coastlines, remain very reasonable, just a fraction of the cost elsewhere.
Second, foreign investment continues to flow into Costa Rica. America and Europe have long been important business partnersand many international companies have impressive stakes there. Intel has large computer chip plants that now produce more revenue for Costa Rica than any other source. Walmart owns virtually every grocery chain in the country and is building large stores in many places. HP has a large presence. And dozens of other world class companies, as well. Many of these companies have been dramatically increasing their work forces in Costa Rica even as they are reducing their American and European employees.
Not to mention China. Its presence is increasing substantially, as well. It has taken advantage of the softening of real estate prices and investing in this Latin America country. There are now several thousand of Chinese living in this little country and, more and more, they are buying up real estate.
Finally, Costa Rica remains a very popular tourist destination and, though its market has been adversely affected, two things remain constant: (1) The supply of available land is limited and the demand for quality affordable property remains; and (2) Location, location, location still appeals to buyers.
The smart money is betting on the land of Pura Vida.
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