Costa Rica's National Technical Environmental Secretariat (Secretaría Técnica Nacional Ambiental, Setena) recently granted a permit to a Project by Corporation Agricola del Monte S.A.-Pindeco for a plantation of 494.4 hectares in a property that is located right next to the Terraba -Sierpe Wetlands. Setena disregarded the objections presented by environmentalists and granted viability to the pr...

Trawling continues to be a topic of discussion for the Government of Costa Rica, this week, congressmen approved in first debate a bill that would bring back shrimp trawling, in total the bill, presented by deputies Melvin Nuñez from the National Restoration party, known as the Law for for Sustainable Exploitation of Shrimp Fishing, received 26 votes in favor and 18 against. This bill proposes...

Two American men tried to enter Costa Rica through the Juan Santamaria International Airport carrying a total of $644,344.00 in their carry-on luggage. The information was confirmed by the Ministry of Public Security. Apparently one of the men is 25 years old and of last name Skees and the second one is 41 years of age and surname Howze. Both man have a clean criminal record. According to ...

Cheetah Digital, a cross-channel customer engagement solution provider, has expanded its operations in Costa Rica to meet growing demand for its solutions and help support clients’ global growth strategies. Cheetah Digital is the largest independent marketing technology company in the world, with more than 1,300 employees in 26 offices across 13 countries. In Costa Rica, Cheetah Digital has inv...

Ministry of Planning and Economic Policy (MIDEPLAN) gave the Costa Rican Train Institute (INCOFER) t total of over $560 thousand dollars to carry out the necessary feasibility studies of the or the project of reconstruction of 131 kilometers of train track between Alajuela and Puntarenas. “The reactivation of the Train to the Pacific” is one of the key projects of Incofer framed within the I...

Procter & Gamble (P&G) continues to consolidate its presence in Costa Rica, and has announced that it will hire 150 more people during 2020 in the areas of information technology, finance and logistics. The announcement was made during P&G's celebration of its 20th anniversary in the country, which was attended by the President of Costa Rica, Carlos Alvarado; David Taylor, CEO of P&G; Dyalá Jim...

The Garabito Municipality have begun using modern equipment known as the "Barber Surf Rake" towed by a tractor that allows the cleaning of one kilometer of beach every 15 minutes, in the case of Jaco, the whole beach can be cleaned within one hour. The machine made in the United States and with a value of 40 million colones (close to $69,155.00 USD) uses a system of chains to collect garbage. ...

A moderately strong earthquake was felt the evening of this Sunday, November 24 in Costa Rica. According to the National Seismologic Network (RSN) the earthquake had a magnitude of 5.4 and the epicenter was to the Northeast of Arancibia, Puntarenas due to the subduction of Cocos plate The movement took place at 7:33 p.m. and it was felt in San José, Cartago, Heredia...

American Airlines inaugurated this Thursday its new daily flight that will connect the JFK International Airport in New York and the Juan Santamaria Airport in San Jose. The first flight landed at 8:30 p.m. in Costa Rica with 160 people aboard. “This new route is an example of our commitment to Costa Rica”, commented Rafael Sánchez, Regional head of Operations for American Airlines. “Very ...

Gianni Infantino, President of FIFA, offered Costa Rica and Panama the possibility to organize the Women’s U-20 World Cup 2020. The proposal came during Infantino’s visit to the country this week, when he held different meetings with the directors of the soccer federation and checked the infrastructure existent in the country. “…We have spoken to President of the Republic, Carlos Alvarado, th...

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) informed that Costa Rica received the approval of the seventeenth committee required to finalize the process of joining this organization: the Investment Committee. With this, there are just five pending approvals, necessary to reach the ambitious goal by May 2020. The approval was achieved after completing an exhaustive evaluation o...

A man with the last name Rojas Mendiola, a resident of Drake Bay in Osa, Puntarenas was detained by the Judicary Investigative Police (OIJ) as a suspect of working with a Colombian drug trafficking group assisting in the logistics to transport drugs coming from Colombia and going to North America. The drug trafficking group which has established operations in Costa Rica moved cocaine and mariju...

Thanks to a strong inter-institutional coordination, the support of the community and the private sector, the Ministry of Energy and Environment (MINAE) was able to implement several improvements at the Manuel Antonio National Park to respond to tourist visitation, guaranteeing the protection of ecosystems and the good service to visitors. This National Park, created in 1972, protects 352 plant...

Spanish newspaper El Mundo published an article n which they listed San Jose, the capital city of Costa Rica as one of the 10 ugliest destinations in the world. Costa Rica continues to attract millions of tourists every year, but it is no secret that the capital city has little to do with the attractions the country has to offer, the beaches and the volcanoes as well as the rain forests take a...

As it was announced just a few days back, the US glam rock band “KISS” will be offering a concert in Costa Rica, the details of this event have now been revealed by Move Concerts, the production company in charge of bringing the iconic band to the country. “KISS will arrive for the first and only time to Costa Rica under the production of Move Concerts and Mercury Concerts, as part of their far...

Modus Create, a multinational company within the digital technologies’ industry, has officially established in Costa Rica and plans to triplicate its current workforce by 2020. The digital transformation company combines Consulting, Design, and Software Engineering to streamline projects and products of global clients, helping them face the new digital economy. The company currently seeks ...

The last Art City Tour of the year will take place November 22 this time the theme is “Night in White: Tour in Augmented Reality” and it will offer 100 activities in 36 spaces. Art City Tours are free cultural events that take the public in night tours through different emblematic places of San Jose, Costa Rica; museums, galleries, historic buildings, etc . with the objective not only of promot...

$3.9 million is the approximate amount that will be invested in the opening of three Olive Garden restaurants in Costa Rica in the upcoming three years. The investment group AR Holdings, member of Promerica Group will bring to Costa Rica the Italian food chain restaurant, the biggest in the United States with 850 locations. The first restaurant is scheduled to open in Escazú in 2020, with an...

An investigation carried out by the International Center of Economic Politics for Sustainable Development of the National University, that used data from 2016 to calculate the contribution of the country’s National Parks to Costa Rica’s finances put in evidence not only the ecologic importance but also the economic importance, social and institutional which is reflected in activities such as touri...

As part of a campaign to protect the Cocos Island UNESCO World Heritage Site, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society partnered with Costa Rica's Ministry of Environment to collect and transport 34 tons of marine pollution, illegal shark finning long lines, and other confiscated fishing gear, which had been accumulating on the remote volcanic island of Cocos for over 25 years. For a one-time project,...

Costa Rican biker Kenneth Tencio qualified this Saturday to the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 even though he did not reach the final of the BMX Freestyle World Championship taking place in Chengdu, China. Tencio came out on Saturday taking risks as he usually does at the semifinal, his repertoire was edgy and he landed position 13. “I am happy to reach the Olympic Games, all efforts done this s...

The sixth edition of Life in Color "World´s Largest Paint Party" will take place on Friday, December 6, at the Pedregal Events Center in San Antonio de Belen, Heredia. This year Major Lazer is the headliner of this show that gathers every year thousands of people, "For JOGO, this sixth edition of Life in Color Costa Rica is a reward to the effort and hard work of many years, it means believing ...

Sun Country Airlines announced it will be adding the route the Costa Rica-Dallas route to its options starting the summer of 2020. Sun Country will connect Dallas, -Fort Worth (DFW) to Liberia, Costa Rica (LIR) during the months of June, July and August 2020, with a flight departing at 8:00 a.m. from the Dallas Fort Worth airport ad arriving at the Daniel Oduber airport in Liberia, Guanacaste a...

US glam rock band “Kiss” officially announced the new dates and stops of its world tour “End of the Road” and Costa Rica is on their list for April 2020. The “End of the Road” farewell tour began this year and will carry on through July, 2021 with the band’s final concert in New York; the band will have two shows in Central America, one in El Salvador and the one in Costa Rica, the dates were ...

The U.S. Embassy San Jose announced it recently joined the worldwide initiative AirNow that provides real time data on air quality via the website airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=airnow.global_summary. The U.S. Embassy installed an air quality device that measures air quality in order to protect the health of the population and contribute to air monitoring efforts by scientists and the Costa Rican ...

The Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) granted Costa Rica a loan of $550 million to support the construction, equipment and start of operations of the Fast Passenger Train for the Great Metropolitan Area. The total cost of the project is estimated on $1,297 million, the balance would come from private companies through public-private alliance, the government will carry out ...

Next Sunday, November 10, Hawaiiian singer Jack Johnson and his band will offer a live performance for the first time in Costa Rica, at the Coca Copa Amphitheater at Parque Viva, the concert will begin at 7 p.m. “Jack Johnson grew up surfing and playing his guitar in Hawaii and his debut album Brushfire Fairytales was released in 2001, since then he has released another 6 studio albums and 2 li...

A reform to the Immigration Control Regulation, promoted by the Costa Rican Promotion Investment Agency (CINDE), the Ministry of Foreign Trade (Comex),together with the General Direction of Immigration, will allow foreigners, who are in the process of approval of residence procedures, the opportunity to work while the application is being resolved. Decree No. 41890-MGP represents a huge advance...

Costa Rica wants to become the first country to regulate the incidence of cruel or inadequate selfies involving wild animals, this through the initiative #stopanimalselfies. A study carried out by World Animal Protection (WAP) in 2017, placed Costa Rica in the seventh place of the world in the number of inadequate photographs and selfies involving wild animals. In response to this and committed...

Costa Rican Drug Control Police (PCD) detected during one of their routine revisions at APM Terminals in Limon a total of 954 kilograms of cocaine inside a container carrying a legal load of banana pulp with lemon concentrate. According to the information released by the Ministry of Public Security, the 20 feet container had Belgium as its destination. Agents of the PCD detected 29 briefcases h...

This is a big year for Costa Rica’s one and only Isla del Coco, Cocos Island National Park, as it received this week the “Blue Park” award for its condition as Global Ocean Refuge in the Gold category of the Marine Conservation Institute which promotes Marine Protected Areas that comply with certain standards of management and effectiveness. Cocos Island was nominated as a candidate back in Jul...

TradeStation, a multinational company in the services sector, announced that it has 20 open positions for systems and computer engineers. The company will be receiving job applicants in its facilities, located in Ultrapark 1, building 7B, in Heredia, on October 24, 25 and 26. Thursday and Friday from 2 pm to 7 pm, and Saturday from 9:30 am to 5 pm. Prospects will go through an interview proces...

SKYWAY Costa Rica annouced its new flights to Bocas del Toro, Panama. "A short 45-minute flight from San Jose Costa Rica, Panama’s popular destination offers white sand beaches, clear water and a fun party atmosphere. It is a great add-on to a vacation to Costa Rica or a stand-alone getaway", states the press release. Flights are available Thursday through Monday each week. Located on the north...

The Social Security Service (CCSS) announced it will be investing over $1.6 billion USD in infrastructure and equipment throughout the entire national territory during the 2019-2022 period. The information was released this Wednesday by President of Costa Rica Carlos Alvarado, the executive president of CCSS, doctor Roman Macaya and architect Gabriela Murillo, manager of infrastructure. During ...

The administration of President Carlos Alvarado lost another important piece with the resignation of the Minister of Treasury, Rocío Aguilar Aguilar announced her decision this Wednesday after being notified that the Comptroller General of the Republic had recommended to the President her suspension for 30 days due to her decision to pay the bills owed by the Central Government to its debtors a...

A boat carrying 1,410 kilograms of cocaine was intercepted in waters of the South Pacific of Costa Rica and three Colombian men were arrested. The Costa Rican Coast Guard service had the assistance of the Colombian National Army, the authorities caught up with the vessel 13 nautical miles from Boca Chica, in the Terraba-Sierpe Wetland area in Sierpe, Osa, Puntarenas, the boat was then transfer...

Refinitiv, a leading global provider of financial data and infrastructure which delivers data, insight and analytics to the financial community, opened its offices on Monday. The company plans to expand its operations in the short term, with 50 additional positions. The company has two departments in the country, including Operations and Finance & Accounting. Currently, Refinitiv is hiring pers...

According to the latest National Homes Survey carried out by the National Institute of Census and Statistics ( Spanish acronym: INEC), 335,895 Costa Rican households live in poverty conditions in 2019, an increase of 7,047 homes in relation to 2018 when the total homes in poverty conditions reached 328,848. However, percentage wise the poverty indicator remained almost the same going from 21.1%...

The area of Tortuguero in Limón is working on promoting the practice of Olympic rowing in Costa Rica with the idea of attracting more tourists interested in this sport while and forming athletes that can represent the country. Olympic rowing is not something new in the country, Costa Rica has participated with success in tournaments and it won silver medals in the Central American Games. Tortug...

The government of Costa Rica declared Surf as a sport of public interest, under Law 9737, due to the importance of this sport for the economy and the tourism sector. The ceremony was held this Friday in Playa Hermosa, Jacó, Puntarenas, this was a historic event in the country since this is the first sport to receive this distinction. The third Saturday of October was also declared National Su...