Top 10 Costa Rica

Continued rain and rising waters have caused more bridges to become unpassable and landslides to close roads on the Caribbean Coast.

Closure of the Braulio Carrillo highway between San Jose and Limon due to 3 landslides on the route. As well the alternate route through Turrialba is also blocked due to landslides between Turrialba and Siquirres.  There is also a road closure between Siquirres and Limon due to rising waters of the Chirripó River.

Unconfirmed reports also says that the highway between Cahuita and Limon is also blocked due to rising waters of the Rio Estrella. Apparently the bridge linking BriBri and Sixaola to Hone Creek and on the rest of the country is also not passable.

MEPE´s San Jose office advised that there will be no more buses today but tomorrow they advise simply ”vamos a ver” (let´s wait and see).

Besides the road closures, more than 4,000 people have been left temporarily homeless by the rain. The Cruz Roja has more than 50 staff working in the area and is mobilizing auxiliary forces to try and rescue people stranded by the storm.

The United States will begin the final round of World Cup qualifying in the Concacaf region by hosting Mexico on Feb. 11. The draw was held Saturday morning in Johannesburg in conjunction with the draw for the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup, which will be played in South Africa a year before it hosts the 2010 World Cup. The other teams in the group are Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Trinidad and Tobago. The top three finishers will go to South Africa, and a fourth team will enter a playoff against the fifth-place finisher in South America for another berth.

Tourists flying into Costa Rica will soon have to pay a new $15 tax.

The new tax on plane tickets replaces a 3 percent tax on hotel rooms that generated just $10 million a year and was hard to enforce.

The new tax should generate $25 million a year to help the Costa Rica Tourism Institute attract more visitors.

Tourism is a $2 billion a year industry in Costa Rica. Each year, nearly 2 million people visit the country known for its eco-tourism. The new tax was approved late Thursday by Congress and should take effect later this year.

Costa Rica’s fresh produce industry leaders applauded the country’s long anticipated entry into the Central American Free Trade Agreement in mid-November and said the pact will benefit both Costa Rica and the U.S.

While Costa Rica’s fresh produce exports to the U.S. already receive duty-free access because of the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act, Costa Rica sources say the free trade deal will allow growers and packers to purchase U.S. machinery and other inputs at zero tariff levels.

Costa Rica’s long-awaited entrance into the CAFTA agreement will also be good for U.S. exporters of apples, grapes and other items. For example, Costa Rica’s applied tariff on apples is 16% and that will drop to zero after Jan. 1. Read the rest of this entry »

Oscar Arias Sanchez, president of the unarmed state of Costa Rica, has called for a global reduction of military spending.

“The perverse logic that leads a poor nation to spend excessive sums on its armies, and not on its people, is exactly the antithesis of human security, and a serious threat to international security,” said Arias in an address before the UN Security Council, over which Costa Rica presides this month.

Although Costa Rica has no military, “it is not a naive nation,” stressed Arias, a 1987 Novel Peace Prize laureate.

“We have not come here for the abolition of all armies. We have not even come to urge the drastic reduction of world military spending, which has reached 3.3 billion dollars a day.”

He suggested that “a gradual reduction is not only possible, but also imperative, particularly for developing nations.”

Sanchez also urged the world body to adopt a treaty regulating arm exports, saying “The destructive power of the 640 million small arms and light weapons that exist in the world, 74 percent in the hands of civilians, has proven to be more lethal than nuclear weapons, and is one of the primary threats to national and international security. “

A Costa Rican official says two Americans and four others have been arrested for allegedly sending restricted pharmaceutical drugs to the United States.

Security Minister Janina del Vecchio says the Americans were responsible for shipping the drugs, while two Costa Ricans led the group and two Colombians were in charge of managing a virtual pharmacy on the Internet and buying the drugs in Guatemala.

She said the ring sent at least 80 packages containing Lorazepam, Ritalin, Tafil and Arcedol, among other drugs, to the Unites States since February.

This is the second group arrested in last 12 months in Costa Rica that allegedly shipped restricted pharmaceuticals to the U.S.

China National Petroleum Corporation has signed a joint venture agreement with Costa Rica’s state refinery RECOPE to build an oil refinery in Costa Rica.

This is the first oil and gas cooperation project in Central America since China and Costa Rica established diplomatic relations in June 2007.

According to the agreement, the parties will set up a joint venture in Costa Rica, with a total term of 25 years, to upgrade, reconstruct and expand Costa Rica’s 1.2-million-ton refinery; to increase its processing capacity; improve product quality and environmental protection; and meet Costa Rica’s demand for oil. The JV is expected to increase the existing oil refinery’s processing capacity to three million tons annually. On addition, the two parties will conduct a feasibility study on a 10 million ton refinery.

The signing of the agreement is believed to be an important step in CNPC’s energy cooperation in Central America.

CNPC specializes in oil and gas upstream and downstream operations, oilfield services, engineering and construction, petroleum material and equipment manufacturing and supply, capital management, finance and insurance services and new energy operations.

Las águilas, the popular name for Costa Rica’s favourite beer, Imperial, will be sold in China beginning next month.

Florida Bebibas, owner fo the Cerverceriza Costa Rica, reached an agreement to sell Costa Rica’s beer and its Tropical bran of fruit drinks.

A mutual agreement was reached with the Chinese brewery, Tsingtao, who will distribute the Costa Rican products in China and in turn Florida Bebidas will make available the Tsingtao beer, China’s popular beer, in Costa Rica.

Florida Bebidas exports manager, Gabriel Carboni, confirmed that the first two containers full of Costa Rican been - 7.560 cases of 24 or 181.440 bottles - will reach the Xiamen port next month.

The Chinese consume on average 27.6 litres of beer per person per year.

Initially the Imperial and Tropical products will be available only in Beijing and Shanghai and in more than 31 provinces by the middle of 2009.

The Imperial can now be also purchased in the United States and Australia.

China and Costa Rica will launch free trade talks in January and hope to seal a deal by 2010, Chinese President Hu Jintao said Monday during his first visit to a Central American country.

Hu spent most of the day in Costa Rica with a delegation of 100 businessmen as part of China’s investment march into resource-rich Latin America, before heading to Cuba for a two-day visit aimed at strengthening ties with Havana.

China’s trade with Latin America has jumped from $10 billion in 2000 to $102.6 billion last year and it is now Costa Rica’s second most important trade partner. Read the rest of this entry »

Chinese President Hu Jintao has begun a short visit to Costa Rica. During his stay in the capital, San José, Mr Hu will sign 11 cooperation agreements. He will also meet President Oscar Arias to discuss the free trade treaty scheduled to take effect between the two countries in 2010.

Costa Rica is, after Chile and Peru, the third Latin American country with which China has discussed free trade agreements. The relationship between the two has blossomed ever since the government in San José decided, in 2007, to break its 60-year-old ties with Taiwan and to begin diplomatic relations with China. Mr Hu called Costa Rica “an important country in Central America and an important partner for Beijing.”

Following his visit to Costa Rica, Mr Hu will travel to Cuba and Peru.

For Google Innovation Community, Costa Rica was definitely an asset and has included as one of the participants and it was launched by the Ministry of Science of Costa Rica. The Google Innovation Group will be open to everyone in Costa Rica who wants to participate and will be used as an announcements board for free activities, training programs, scholarships and offers for financial support for scientific and economic research. The Ministry of Science of Costa Rica also plants to use other tools such as Youtube and Facebook to display any type of innovation developed in Costa Rica and document promoting the project has been sent to every school in the country as well.

Costa Rica has proved to have extremely talent professionals and good resources for technology innovation, this addition of Costa Rica to the Google Innovation Community just proves that the potential in Costa Rica is above the parameters established by well known innovative companies around the world.

In Costa Rica, science and systems engineering are one of the top careers chosen by youngsters and many items we use today have been developed in Costa Rica lands, also many technological companies such as Intel, Hologic and Alienware have had their offices located here due to the fact that the professional labor in their areas is definitely strong and well prepared among professionals in Costa Rica

Certain streets in San José will be closed Sunday and Monday for the arrival of Chinese President Hu Jintao, the Public Works and Transport Ministry said.

For about 90 minutes Sunday starting at 3:30 p.m., authorities will close roads including National Route 1, General Cañas, National Route 27, Próspero Fernández, National Route 39, the ministry said in a press release.

On Monday, Próspero Fernández and the Circunvalación, where it meets Route 27 going to Zapote, will be shut from 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.

From 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Monday, General Cañas, from San José to the Juan Santamaría International Airport as well as the Bernardo Soto road will be closed.

From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday, cars will not be permitted to drive on Paseo Colón and Avenida Segunda, though drivers will be allowed to cross these streets north and south.

Lawmakers have advanced a bill that would replace a national 3 percent hotel tax with a flat $15 tax on airplane tickets to Costa Rica.

The new tax would increase funding for the Arias administration’s efforts to market Costa Rica to tourists as a financial crisis pinches pockets around the world. In 2006, the Costa Rican Tourism Board (ICT) collected about $7.9 million from the tax on hotel fees. ICT would have collected about $17.5 million by charging $15 to each visitor arriving by air.

The bill also would promote in-country tourism by Ticos, who would not pay the new airfare tax, said lawmaker Ana Helena Chacón of the Social Christian Unity Party (PUSC).

The bill, which survived an initial vote yesterday, would become law ones it clears a second vote and is signed by President Oscar Arias.

A cruise ship carrying 1,300 passengers that was scheduled to arrive at Costa Rica’s Pacific port of Puntarenas had to be diverted to Panama because of a protest by fishermen that left three people arrested and caused an estimated $250,000 in losses, authorities said Thursday.

The detainees, according to a statement by the Security Ministry, were captains of small fishing vessels who barred the entrance of the Coral Princess in a protest over a new law banning shark finning, the controversial process of removing shark fins - often while the animal is still alive - to provide the ingredients for the popular Asian dish of shark fin soup. Read the rest of this entry »

Costa Rica is finally ready to join the Central American Free Trade Agreement.
The country signed the accord in 2004 along with the rest of Central America, the United States and the Dominican Republic. But its implementation has been stalled for four years by opposition lawmakers.

Costa Ricans voted for the trade deal in a national referendum a year ago, moving it forward. But then it became stalled again as congress squabbled over the enabling legislation dealing with 13 different aspects of the deal.

On Tuesday, lawmakers overcame the final hurdle by approved laws dealing with intellectual property, and President Oscar Arias said his office will quickly finalize the paperwork needed for Cafta to take effect in Costa Rica on Jan. 1.

“After more than four and a half years of debate, two extensions and one historic referendum in which the majority said they agreed with the free trade accord, we are finally closing this chapter,” said his spokesman Rodrigo Arias, the president’s brother.

Chamber of Commerce President Manuel Rodriguez said the accord “opens a window of opportunities for small businesses.”
The pending deal has mobilized large protests in Costa Rica in the past, but Tuesday’s news came with no public opposition.