Source: iCafe BioNovelus, a clean tech company that aims to offer a portfolio of green solutions for various applications, recently received positive results from lab and field trials showing BioNovelus’ technology as an effective, eco-friendly biopesticide against Hemileia vastatrix, the fungus named “coffee rust,” or “roya” in Central and South America. The company hopes to put this eco-f...

Wikimedia Commons Rio de Janeiro, Jan 27 (EFE).- The average annual percentage rate on Brazilian credit cards climbed to 431.4 percent in December, its highest level since that statistic began to be published in March 2011, the Central Bank said in a statement Wednesday. The average credit card APR rose by 16.1 percentage points in December compared with November and by 99.8 percentage poin...

Source: Marcopolo Flickr Marcopolo S.A. Press Release - Marcopolo has just signed a new contract for the export of buses to some of the main transport operators in Costa Rica. The vehicles with different characteristics, will be used for urban, tourism and interstate transportation. "For a long time we have dedicated ourselves to broaden our bus sales, mainly to other Latin American countri...

Panama Canal Panama City, Jan 25 (EFE).- The Panama Canal is operating normally and was not affected by the sinking of a Venezuelan-flagged cargo ship that collided with another vessel at the Caribbean entrance to the interoceanic waterway, administrators said Monday. "The sinking of this vessel is not affecting the operations or traffic in the aquatic waterway," said the Panama Canal Autho...

Evonik headquarters SAN JOSE, Costa Rica, Jan. 19th, 2015 -  Evonik Industries, a leading global specialty chemical company based in Essen, Germany, announced today that it plans to open a financial shared services center in Costa Rica to serve the company’s operations in North and South America. Evonik will begin office construction and hiring during the first quarter of 2016 and expec...

Source: ICE CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Fitch Ratings has affirmed Reventazon Finance Trust's (RFT) US$135 million fixed-rate notes as follows: --US$135 million fixed-rate notes at 'BBB-'; Outlook Negative. The transaction is backed by a 100% participation interest in the Inter-American Development Bank's (IDB) B-Loan acquired through a participation agreement. Since IDB continues to be le...

Orange County District Attorney Press Release - WESTMINSTER, Calif. – A “hard money” lender was convicted today of embezzling over $3 million from investors in a Ponzi real estate-mortgage investment fraud scheme. Thomas Franklin Tarbutton, 56, Newport Beach, was found guilty by a jury of 18 felony counts of grand theft, nine felony counts of forgery, 11 felony counts of using an untrue stateme...

Source; Banco Central de Costa Rica NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Fitch Ratings has affirmed Costa Rica's Long-term foreign- and local-currency IDRs at 'BB+'. The Rating Outlook is Negative. The issue ratings on Costa Rica's senior unsecured foreign- and local-currency bonds have been affirmed at 'BB+'. The Short-term foreign-currency IDR has been affirmed at 'B' and the Country Ceiling at 'BBB-'...

By Alfonso Fernandez Washington, Jan 19 (EFE; additional context by The Costa Rica Star).- One of every five people in Latin America between the ages of 15 and 24 is neither in school nor working and two-thirds of them are women, according to a World Bank study released Tuesday. The figure represents more than 20 million people in the region and the problem is especially acute in Central Ame...

Tourists who come to Costa Rica seeking affordable dental procedures are getting younger and more attuned to the idea of going abroad for treatment, and this is a trend that can be expected to expand this decade. As the North American members of the Millennial Generation join the workforce and the enterprise world, the dental industry is rushing to understand these young adults for the purpose ...

Source: Abbott CINDE Press Release - With the presence of Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis and Abbott Vascular Division Senior Vice President Mr. Deepak Nath, the company celebrated the fifth anniversary of its vascular devices manufacturing plant in Costa Rica, whose products are distributed and used around the world. Abbott has been in Costa Rica for over 80 years through the sa...

A Walmart store in Escazu, Costa Rica. File photo Washington, Jan 15 (EFE; additional reporting by The Costa Rica Star).- U.S. retail giant Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. on Friday announced plans to close 269 stores and lay off 16,000 employees, 6,000 of them outside the United States. In a news release, the Bentonville, Arkansas-based company said it would close 154 stores in the United States and...

Beijing, Jan 15 (EFE).- China's central bank said Friday it had extended 100 billion yuan ($15.18 billion) in loans to nine financial institutions, 10 days after announcing a similar operation to boost liquidity in the market. The injection of funds, which comes amid a slowdown in China's economy, was carried out via medium-term loans (six-month maturity) with an interest rate of 3.25 percent a...

Maritime Executive Press Release - GT USA announced the January 2016 launch of the new Blue Stream weekly container cargo service connecting Port Canaveral to Europe, the French West Indies, and Central America. The Blue Stream service is operated by StreamLines, N.V., part of the Seatrade Group, providing refrigerated and dry container service to and from the Canaveral Cargo Terminal, with a f...

Source: SIG (PresseBox) (Linnich, 12.01.2016) Products from Dos Pinos (www.dospinos.com) are the first choice for consumers in Costa Rica, as the 2015 “Brand Footprint” annual report published by Kantar World Panel confirms: 99.7% of survey participants said they had purchased products from Dos Pinos during the previous year. This successful cooperative – Central America’s and the Caribbean’s ...

Wikimedia Commons CHICAGO, Jan. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- A.T. Kearney today released its 2016 Global Services Location Index™ (GSLI), a research paper that analyzes and ranks the top 55 countries for outsourcing worldwide based on metrics in three categories: financial attractiveness, people skills and availability, and business environment. T he GSLI brings rigor to companies' location dec...

FreeStockPhotos.biz The looming economy crisis in Latin America is becoming more apparent with new reports from Mexico and Venezuela. The national currency of Mexico showed signs of retail weakness as global markets plummeted due to concerns about reduced growth of the Chinese economy, and the price of crude oil produced in Venezuela, an OPEC member nation, fell well below $30. The followin...

Panama Canal Panama City, Jan 9 (EFE).- The consortium responsible for the main Panama Canal expansion project is the subject of a criminal complaint in the Central American country for allegedly inflating its cost overrun claims. National Bar Association Vice President Juan Carlos Arauz filed the complaint, to which EFE gained access, on Thursday with Panama's Attorney General's Office. ...

File photo The iconic Imperial beer eagle has landed at the Juan Santamaria International Airport (SJO), the main hub for air travel in Costa Rica. According to a news report published by business daily La Republica, beverage giant Florida Ice & Farm has taken the unusual step of opening an airport bar right across from boarding gate #9 at SJO. The bar tentatively opened in early Decemb...

NEW YORK, Jan. 6, 2016 - The 2016 New York Times Travel Show will open its doors Friday, Jan. 8, exclusively to travel professionals and writers for its Trade Day. The Travel Show will welcome all visitors Saturday, Jan. 9, and Sunday, Jan. 10. The Travel Show will feature more than 500 exhibitors, representing 150 countries, with representatives who will be available to offer expert insights, ...

Costa Rica's rapid rise in the last decade to become a global hub for foreign direct investment is spurring a new wave of investment opportunities in trending sectors, boosted by an expanded tax incentives package. Costa Rica is already home to more than 275 high-tech multinational companies like Intel, Amazon, HP Enterprise, P&G, Boston Scientific, St. Jude Medical and Abbott. The country ...

Café de Costa Rica (iCafé), an organization responsible for coffee production and export from Costa Rica, announced that it has selected Sopexa as its public relations agency in the United States. “We look forward to developing a long-term relationship with the Sopexa team, whose passion embodies those of our producers,” said Mario Arroyo Uder, marketing lead for Icafé. “Sopexa’s deep beverage ...

Panama Canal Panama City, Jan 2 (EFE).- President Juan Carlos Varela said Saturday that the inauguration of a newly expanded Panama Canal would take place in May in the presence of several heads of state and government, while also calling on the consortium responsible for the third-locks project to stop waging a media battle with his government. "Sometime in May 2016, our country will once ...

Source; Flickr Commons Since its launch in December 2014, The "Know Your Customer" (KYC) Registry has been adopted by more than 100 financial institutions in Latin America to complement existing compliance programs. In several jurisdictions across the region, the Registry has been endorsed by either a Central Bank or financial communities, including the Dominican Republic, Panama, Costa Rica a...

Flickr Commons A more competitive marketplace is expected for the weight control and fitness industry in Costa Rica in 2016, a country where the rate of obesity has increased gradually over the last few years. According to a new report by Fast Market Research, players in this industry will have to adjust to innovation in 2016. Integral dietary approaches that often start with detox techniqu...

File photo LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE) -- Employees who work in the non-government business sector in Costa Rica should expect a salary raise next year that will be slightly lower than in 2015. A forecast issued earlier this month by Korn Ferry (NYSE:KFY), the preeminent global people and organizational advisory firm, reveals that workers around the world are expected see real wage increas...

Source: Telefonica Madrid, December 2015. Telefónica will launch video services in seven new Latin American markets in 2016, which will mainly be VoD (video on demand) services and linear television channels. These markets are Ecuador, Uruguay, Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua. The launch will be staggered throughout next year, and the service mode available in each cou...

Panama Canal Panama City, Dec 23 (EFE).- The inauguration of the Panama Canal expansion will be delayed for six months if the ACP, the public entity administering the interocean waterway, does not make more flexible its bureaucratic and payment procedures, Giuseppe Quarta, the director of GUPC, the consortium that is handling the project, said Wednesday. "We ... (can) deliver the project" b...

BICSA in Panama. Wikimedia Commons PANAMA CITY, Dec. 22, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Banco Latinoamericano de Comercio Exterior, S.A. ("Bladex" or the "Bank") (NYSE: BLX) announced today the closing of a US$50 million, 3-Year Senior Unsecured Term Loan Facility for Banco Internacional de Costa Rica S.A. ("BICSA"). BICSA is a bank established in Panama and owned by Banco de Costa Rica and Banco Nac...

Fiserv Costa Rica BROOKFIELD, Wis. & BARREAL DE HEREDIA, Costa Rica--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Fiserv, Inc. (NASDAQ: FISV), a leading global provider of financial services technology solutions, today announced that a web-based application created during the Fiserv 2nd Annual Programathon will further the education of 50,190 schoolchildren in Costa Rica, Honduras and Nicaragua. Bringing together ...

Pixabay Commons OpenFinance, a BME subsidiary specializing in the development and implementation of technology solutions for financial advice and portfolio management, has signed an agreement with Aldesa Corporación de Inversiones for implementing its Openworkplace® platform. It will also carry out management activities with its clients and tracking product portfolios within the financial firm...

Zollner in Cartago Competing with successful companies requires a continuous supply of initiatives, ideas and concepts. One of the companies achieving success in the midst of intense global competition is Zollner AG, an electronic manufacturing services (EMS) market leader from Zandt, located in the Eastern Bavarian Forest of Germany. Founder Manfred Zollner can proudly look back on 50 year...

Desyfin office in Grecia LUXEMBOURG, December 17, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Sustainability | Finance | Real Economies SICAV - SIF (SFRE, pronounced Sapphire) has made its first investments totalling just under USD 10 million in Banco Vision (Paraguay) and Financiera Desyfin (Costa Rica), in line with its strategy of advancing social, environmental and economic development by providing capital to ba...

Source: Crowley.com (SAN JOSE, Costa Rica; Dec. 17, 2015) - Crowley Maritime Corp.'s liner and logistics group in Central America recently received National Road Safety Recognition from the Costa Rica Ministry of Public Works for their focus on regional, national and local road safety. During an awards ceremony, which took place Dec. 10, in San José, Costa Rica, Crowley was recognized for thei...

SAN JOSE, COSTA RICA--(Marketwired - Dec 15, 2015) - The Costa Rican Investment Promotion Agency (CINDE, in Spanish) and the Ministry of Foreign Trade (COMEX) reported that foreign investment businesses in the Services, Life Sciences, Advanced Manufacturing, Light Manufacturing and Food Industry sectors generated a total of 12,000 new jobs in 2015. According to Jorge Sequeira, Managing Director...

Oveedia desktop. Source: Pure LAS VEGAS, NV--(Marketwired - Dec 9, 2015) - Pure Hospitality Solutions, Inc. (OTC PINK: PNOW), parent Company of the Central American-Caribbean online travel Agency (OTA), Oveedia (www.Oveedia.com), announced today, that the Company has made significant strides over the past several weeks in preparation for a successful New Year. "Although we have been quiet w...

MIAMI (PRWEB) December 08, 2015 - Global Stem Cells Group announced plans to develop and host six new symposiums in Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Costa Rica and Ecuador in 2016. According to Global Stem Cells Group CEO Benito Novas, the lineup of Latin American conferences will be a Spanish circuit of disclosure and discussion of the science related to regenerative medicine. The decision fo...

Source: VMware CINDE Press Release - San José, Costa Rica. 10 December 2015. VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), a global leader in cloud infrastructure and business mobility, today inaugurated its new operations center in Costa Rica. During inauguration ceremonies, the company announced its intention to continue to hire local talent and grow its presence in the local market. The inauguration of ...

Source: iCafe COSTA RICA, Dec. 9, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- During last month's International Coffee Week (SINTERCAFE), an event that gathered more than 500 professionals of the coffee industry from around the world, Café de Costa Rica announced its commitment to becoming the world's first fully environmentally sustainable coffee-producing region. "With growing exports towards the United States,...

Wikimedia Commons MANHATTAN, Kansas. – The Kansas Department of Agriculture is seeking individuals to participate in a beef genetics trade mission to Costa Rica on Feb. 22-26, 2016. In an effort to increase market opportunities for U.S. and Kansas beef genetics, this provides an opportunity for Kansas purebred beef cattle producers and allied industry to continue developing relationships w...