Aug 21, 2008 - Citizens of Costa Rica should be getting better Internet service soon, according to the phone company and an underwater cable operation.

The Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad plans to connect with the express cable that runs under the ocean from northern Miami, Florida, to Cartagena, Colombia. Costa Rica will connect to the CFX-1 cable via a fiber optic cable off Panama’s shore in the Caribbean.

The new connection will strengthen the Internet signal and speed in both Panama and Costa Rica, said Claudio Bermúdez, sub-director of the phone company.

The company Columbus Networks, owner of the ARCOS cable in the Caribbean will administer the project. When asked about safety, Eduardo Gandarilla, vice president of Columbus Networks, explained that the cable unlike others will be deeper down under the ocean and stronger, avoiding risks from illegal fishing and shrimp boats who can damage cables. The cables that carry Costa Rica’s Internet signals to the world have been cut several times by fishing boat anchors.

Both Bermúdez and Gandarilla said the project would help boost foreign investment in Costa Rica.

Source: amcostarica.com

June 16, 2008 - The United States Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) announced it will be building a health clinic in the Talamanca region of Costa Rica.

The 345 square metre (3.700 square feet) clinic is to be located in El Bambú community near the Panama border in the province of Limón.

The announcement was made by the U.S. Embassy in San José.

The Talamanca project is not the first by the USSOUTHCOM, in Februay the agency announced plans to double funding to us$2 million dollars to Costa Rica counter narcotics traffic. In April USSOUTHCOM contributed us$250.000 for the construction of a new Coast Guard base in Puntarenas.

USSOUTHCOM, located in Miami, Florida, is one of ten unified Combatant Commands (COCOMs) in the United States Department of Defense. It is responsible for providing contingency planning, operations, and security cooperation for Central and South America, the Caribbean (except U.S. commonwealths, territories, and possessions), Cuba, the Bahamas, their territorial waters, and for the force protection of U.S. military resources at these locations. USSOUTHCOM is also responsible for ensuring the defense of the Panama Canal and canal area.

The U.S. Southern Command Area of Focus encompasses more than 30 countries and covers about 15.6 million square miles. The region represents about one-sixth of the landmass of the world assigned to regional unified commands.

May 12, 2008 - The Caribbean zone may soon see millions of dollars invested in the region after the government agreed to borrow money in order to pay for development.

Bank loans of $42 million will finance environmental and development projects to improve the quality of life of people in the Sixaola and other Atlantic coast areas, according to the decision made Friday.

The Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo will put in $12 million for the Programa de Desarrollo de la Cuenca Binacional del Río Sixaola.

While claiming that the program will include initiatives that will help manage the natural resources of the Parque Internacional La Amistad and the Reserva Gandoca Manzanillo, Limón legislator Jorgé Mendez confirmed that the money will also go into diversifying productivity in the region and creating sources of employment.

Much-needed infrastructural development is also on the list, with money to be allocated for acueducts, refuse management and roads.

The second loan is larger, at $30 million, and comes from the Banco Internacional de Reconstrucción y Fomento for a project called Programa de Pago de Servicios Ambientales denominado Ecomercados II.

This seems to be intended to pay the owners of forests, plantation forests and other forestry systems, in order to ensure that these areas of biodiversity are protected and the conservation of forests and biological corridors is maintained.

Source: amcostarica.com

March 24, 2008 - According to the daily La Nacion newspaper, Costa Rica’s naional debt has been reduced over the last five years in a “spectacular” manner. And according to national authorities, the debt passed from 60% of the gross national product in 2003 to 45% last year. The International Monetary Fund put last year;s figure at 43%. Whoever is right about the latter figure, it is the greatest debt reduction since the debt renegotiation at the beginning of the 1990s.

The IMF estimates that this year, the figure could fall to 40% of the GNP. What accounts for these happy figures? La Nacion economics writer Patricia Leiton suggest three important factors: 1. Increased national production, including exports. 2. Lower interest rates. 3. Governmental savings. Gross internal product, (the monetary value of goods and services produced by the country in a year) is up “significantly,” to used the reporter’s word. In the past three years it rose to 6.3% in 2005, to 8.8% in 2006 and to 6.9% last year.

So the government had larger income from taxes and less need to borrow. Couple this with a lowering of interest rates from 15% in 2005 to the current 5% and you have a drop in the cost of the debt. The capping achievement was a surpising curb in government spending, especially under President Pacheco’s austerity plan. Far from having to borrow to pay interest on the national debt as had been done in years past, the government actually created as surplus, something the World Bank had advocated Costa Rica accomplish.

Source: american-european.net

March 19, 2008 - Unquestionably, 2007 was a year of growth for Costa Rica’s national tourism industry and the beginning of 2008 confirms consistency. January of 2008 marked a good start in tourist air arrivals according to the preliminary data gathered by the Costa Rica Tourist Board - the Instituto Costarricense de Turismo (ICT).

Despite economic worries in the main North American markets, the first month of 2008 shows optimism. International tourism arrivals registered at the Juan Santamaría (San José) International Airport (SJO) and Daniel Oduber Quirós (LIR) in Liberia have showed a steady growth.

According to the ICT, 127,647 international visitors arrived by plane in January of 2008, marking a 13.7 percent over the same month of 2007.

For tourism Minister, Carlos Ricardo Benavides, these numbers indicate a positive trend for the current high season already taking place, and at the same time committing the government and sector to improve efforts to promote tourism activities.

“These figures are excellent news, a 13 percent increase is way over the annual estimates and we should take advantage of this to work even harder throughout the year, especially now considering the economic situation, particularly in the United States. We are pleased to announce that we have started off the year successfully,” said Benavides.

In the case of the national airport Juan Santamaría, the numbers indicate an estimated increase of 15 percent, representing approximately 121,000 tourists. The Daniel Oduber airport has an expected increase of 7.3 percent, with 23,000 visitors.

Expansion began last year with U.S. and European airline companies including Spirit Airlines, Frontier, Champion Air, Sunwing Airlines, First Choice, Air Caraibes, and Air Comet flying across Costa Rican skies.

Costa Rica closed 2007 with a total of 1.9 million international tourist arrivals, an 11.5 percent increase in comparison to 2006. Revenue generated by international tourists reached a historic high of us$1.9 billion, up us$300 million from last year.

In terms of investment, in 2007 Costa Rica received an estimated us$800 million in tourism investment; excluding investment in real estate development. Hilton, Marriott, Crown and Express are among some of the hotel chains that decided to invest in Costa Rica’s tourism industry.

In 2008, Costa Rica will be the host of the next United Nations’ International Task Force on Sustainable Tourism Development. In that sense, sustainable tourism will continue being a pivotal goal for 2008. Costa Rica has set a goal to become a zero carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) tourist destination by the year 2021.

Costa Rica, one of the countries with the greatest biodiversity in the world, has been since 1990, one of the first eco tourism destinations where the national heritage and resources have been used in a sustainable and responsible way. The Certification for Sustainable Tourism (CST), created by the ICT in 1999, is one of the initiatives to support sustainable development within the tourism industry.

Source: insidecostarica.com