THE Robin Hood of private hospitals that takes payment from those who can afford it and dishes out its services to some who cannot, is expanding.

At a ceremony attended by Costa Rican President Abel Pacheco and San José Mayor Johnny Araya as well as medical staff, the ClínicaBíblicaHospital laid the first stone on a new building Wednesday.

The first phase of the San José expansion project carries a price tag of $20 million and should be finished within two years.

The new hospital building will house emergency rooms, laboratories, four new operation rooms that will bring the hospital’s count to nine, intensive care wards, 90 beds and other services.

THE second phase will be the construction of a multi-leveled parking structure with a helicopter-landing pad, and the final phase will be the linking of their new additions with bridges and tunnels.

In the ceremony this week, Pacheco and others signed a copy of the Bible, and the President highlighted the ways that Costa Ricans have improved their health over the years, including a decreased rate of infant mortality and longer life expec-tancies.

“The Clínica Bíblica deserves a special mention as it has been faithful to those missionaries, Christians and humanitarians who founded it. It has maintained and strengthened its social programs, which in 2003 donated more than ¢150 million ($354,000) to those who need assistance.”

THE clinic also manages 17 small community health clinics around the country, including one as far south as the OsaPeninsula.

A team of health professionals visits impoverished communities around San José and the country, providing lectures on family planning and basic personal care, such as the importance of brushing teeth.

In the south-central San José neighborhood around the hospital, pastors and health professionals distribute food and try to quell the social problems such as prostitution and drug addiction, according to hospital representative Susana Guzmán.

“We want to help the nearby community,” Guzmán said.

CLÍNICA Bíblica was founded by missionaries in 1921 as a medical center that gave free health care to children and mothers.

It lost its funding in 1968, when the Misión Latinoamérica, its sponsor, deemed that Costa Rica had overcome its deficiencies in providing health care and did not need a free clinic.

Since then, under the management of the Association of Costa Rican Medical Services (ASEMECO), the hospital has operated autonomously, paying for its social welfare programs through the proceeds it generates from providing health services to those who can afford to pay.

The hospital employs 600 health professionals and 400 doctors.

COSTA Ricans, Spaniards and others across the country this week continued to mourn the lives lost in the Madrid train bombings March 11.

Yesterday, President Abel Pacheco, Spanish Ambassador Juan Urtasun, several other ambassadors, ministers and bishops from the Costa Rican Episcopal Conference and approximately 800 other people gathered for a mass at the Cathedral of San José in memory of the victims.

Archbishop Hugo Barrantes, in a sermon that emphasized respect for life and non-violence, reaffirmed the Catholic Church’s solidarity with the people and government of Spain as well as with the families of those who died and those who were injured.

THE number of dead had reached 202 by press time yesterday, and more than 1,600 were injured, including several in critical condition, according to wire reports.

“Those who have made death their culture and hate their doctrine will be able to thrust their terrible claws and claim some of our humble, good and innocent people, but they will not be able to annihilate their spirits or erase their loved and respected memory,” President Pacheco said in a speech during the ceremony yesterday.

“There is no cause, ideal, flag, ideology or creed that is justification for the murder of innocent people,” he said.

CASA España and the SpanishCulturalCenter held memorial services March 12, and this week the Spanish Embassy in San José opened a book of condolences “in memory of the victims of the brutal attack…”

“It’s very tough being here with all that is happening in Spain – it makes one feel impotent,” said one Spanish citizen in Costa Rica, who asked to remain anonymous (TT Daily Page, March15).

Members of Costa Rica’s Libertarian Movement Party also denounced the attacks and sent their “pained condolences” to the “workers, students, fathers, mothers and tourists” who died in the tragedy.

President Pacheco declared two days of national mourning in Costa Rica immediately after the attacks.

“Spain, even in the midst of great suffering, is and will always be, infinite times more powerful than the band of murderers who today [March 11] launched this terrible attack,” Pacheco said (TT Daily Page, March 12).

THE Spanish government accused the Basque separatist group ETA (Euskadi Ta Azkatasuna, which means “freedom for the Basque country”) as the responsible party directly after the attacks.

A videotape of a man claiming responsibility for Al Qaeda was delivered to a Madrid TV station Saturday. In the tape, according to wire reports, a man says, “We declare our responsibility for what happened in Madrid… It is a response to your collaboration with the criminals, (U.S. President George W.) Bush and his allies.”

At press time, Spanish and international investigators, including the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, were still investigating the attacks, which included 10 bombings on four trains, and had arrested 11 suspects – three Morrocans, an Algerian, two Indians, four people of Arab descent and one Spanish citizen, according to CNN reports.

THE bombings became a political rallying point for Spanish voters, who during Sunday’s national elections swept out the ruling Popular Party (PP) in favor of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE).

Socialist José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero announced his victory following a moment of silence for the victims of the attack, and said he would unify the members of the government to put an end to terrorism.

Zapatero will take the reins from Prime Minister José María Aznar, a staunch supporter of the war in Iraq.

The Prime Minister-elect has vowed to withdraw Spanish troops from what he called the “disastrous” occupation of Iraq, Reuters reported.

On Wednesday, Zapatero rejected an appeal from Bush to stand by the United States in Iraq.

“The occupation is a fiasco. There have been almost more deaths after the war than during the war,” Zapatero was quoted by CNN.

ON Saturday, the day before the national elections, between 9 million and 11 million people marched in the streets of major cities throughout Spain, calling for an end to the violence.

On Sunday, more voters went to the polls than in previous elections. The Spanish daily El País reported that 80% of Spaniards voted, 8% more than during the 2000 elections.

THE quest to convict those responsible for the assassination of radio journalist Parmenio Medina saw several developments this week, including the conditional release of a suspect, adding to the complexity of the investigation and leaving doubts as to when a criminal trial might begin.

Catholic priest Minor Calvo, a widely popular priest who prosecutors suspect of authoring Medina’s 2001 assassination, was released from Gerardo Rodríguez jail last week, where he had been serving a preventive sentence for his alleged involvement in the case.

Calvo says he is innocent of the charges.

ANOTHER suspected intellectual author, sports businessman Omar Chaves, apparently will remain behind bars for the remainder of his six-month preventive sentence, which expires June 26. He also has declared he is innocent in the case.

Heredia judge Ileanna Méndez decided on Wednesday there was sufficient cause to  reject an appeal Chaves filed asking to be released.

Méndez said in her ruling she rejected the appeal because of the possibility that Chaves played an important role in authoring Medina’s killing, because he allegedly tampered with evidence in an attempt to obstruct the investigation, and it is possible he will evade the judicial process by leaving the country.

In the text of the ruling, Méndez wrote “the court can show clearly that there has existed and exists a great manipulation and obstruction of the process” on the part of Chaves.

MEDINA hosted a 28-year-old satirical and investigative radio program called La Patada (The Kick), which had run a series of reports about financial irregularities in the now-collapsed Radio Maria, a station run by Calvo and funded by Chaves.

Assassins gunned down the 62-year-old, Colombian-born, Costa Rican-naturalized journalist outside his home in the northern province of Heredia on July 7, 2001. Medina received three bullets fired point-blank at his head and torso.

Chaves and Calvo, both arrested in late December, 2003 (TT, Jan. 9), had requested their release in January, but Appeals Court Judge Luis Gerardo Bolaños rejected both their appeals and ruled Jan. 16 that the two suspects must serve the remainder of their six-month preventive detention sentences (TT, Jan. 23).

A subsequent appeal submitted by Calvo’s lawyer, Moises Vincenzi, won the priest conditional liberty on March 12.

Calvo is prohibited from leaving the country or contacting other witnesses involved in the trial, and must present himself before a judge every 15 days.

The Archbishop of San José, Hugo Barrantes, has asked Calvo to refrain from giving mass, baptisms, or taking confessions until the investigation is concluded (TT Daily Page, March 15).

The prosecutor in charge of the investigation, Guiselle Rivera, told television reporters that Chaves continues to threaten witnesses and investigators involved in the case.

This is the second time Rivera has alleged Chaves has threatened persons involved in the case.

Rivera said that on Feb. 11, during a forensic investigation in San Joaquín de Flores, in Heredia, Chaves told her and officer Jairo Mora: “You visit a lot of people, eh? Be very careful. You know what I’m talking about,” La Nación reported.

WHEN contacted by The Tico Times, Rivera declined to comment on the threats, “out of respect for the court,” she said.

Ulysses Calderón, one of the lawyers on Chaves’ defense team, said the prosecutors’ evidence is scant and his client should be released immediately.

“There is not proof enough to keep him in preventive prison,” Calderón told The Tico Times on Wednesday. “It is irrational and disproportionate.”

Calderón said he did not know what threats Rivera was referring to, and that he believed the accusations were a form of “adding fuel to the fire.”

THE suspected middleman of the assassination, John Gilberto Gutiérrez, remains behind bars, though the Attorney General of the Republic, Francisco Dall’Anese, notified Gutiérrez via fax last Friday that he was no longer a key witness in the case, Al Día reported.

A sworn statement signed by Gutiérrez, a Colombian, on Nov. 11, 2003, was the basis for the arrests of both Calvo and Chaves. In it, Gutiérrez claimed the two had hired him to find gunmen to kill Medina.

But on Feb. 10, Gutiérrez reversed his testimony, claiming he had only signed that document because prosecutors promised him his freedom within eight days.

After he was certain they were not going to fulfill their promise, he said, he announced he had not known either of the men personally, and only knew of Calvo because he had seen him on television.

In a court ruling in Heredia Jan. 15, Gutiérrez had his preventive prison sentence reduced by three months (TT, Jan. 23).

COSTA Rica and the Middle-Eastern nation of Qatar established diplomatic relations this week, according to the Costa Rican Foreign Ministry.

The official announcement was made Wednesday in New York during a brief signing ceremony during which Bruno Stagno, Costa Rica’s permanent representative to the United Nations, and his counterpart from Qatar, Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, exchanged letters, formalizing diplomatic relations between both countries.

OFFICIALS from the U.S. Embassy this week confirmed that a North American man who committed suicide in his Costa Rican jail cell just after being captured on an extradition order Feb. 20 was a key player in a transnational tax-shelter scheme known as Anderson’s Ark and Associates (AAA).

The man’s name was George Burke, but he was also known as George Kof, George Chester and Gene Cody, according to authorities.

Burke was arrested by agents of the Judicial Investigative Police (OIJ) at 11 a.m., and was found dead in his San José cell around 12:30 p.m., OIJ officials said.

Burke was a Canadian citizen, officials said, but was captured on an extradition order originating from the U.S. District Court, Western District of California, where he was wanted for conspiracy, money-laundering and electronic and wire fraud charges stemming from his alleged participation in Anderson’s Ark.

LILY Ellerton, a spokeswoman from the Canadian Embassy, said the only information the embassy had pertaining to Burke was that he had applied for a Canadian passport in May 2003, but his application was not processed because his  paperwork was incomplete.

Authorities believe Anderson’s Ark, suspected of laundering money through Costa Rican companies, cost the U.S. Internal Revenue Service some $28 million (TT, April 12, 2002).

Keith Anderson, the mastermind of the scheme, told The Tico Times in 2002 that he first began intentionally rebelling against the U.S. tax system in 1979, when he learned tax dollars were being used to fund abortion clinics.

“I had to come to grips with one of two things,” he said (TT, April 26, 2002). “Financially supporting the mass murder by giving funds to the government, or deciding to serve God Almighty, our creator, and oppose it.”

ANDERSON nearly avoided extradition after his Feb. 9, 2002, arrest by obtaining Costa Rican citizenship, but his final citizenship documents were withheld after the Civil Registry’s Naturalization Department learned of the charges against him. Before he was extradited to the United States in late 2002, Anderson had needed surgery for a hernia, and spent some time chained to his hospital bed (TT, April 26, Aug. 23, 2002).

THE Presidents of Argentina and Brazil this week announced they would endorse former Costa Rican President Miguel Angel Rodríguez (1998-2002) in his bid to become Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Costa Rica’s Foreign Ministry announced in a statement.

Foreign Minister Roberto Tovar expressed “profound” gratitude to the governments of Argentina and Brazil for pledging their “valuable support.”

“The message expressed by the Presidents of Argentina, Néstor Kirchner, and Brazil, Luiz Inacio “Lula” Da Silva, to Costa Rica’s candidate, constitutes a valuable opportunity to secure the election of a Central American,” Tovar said. “It consolidates the possibility that a candidate that represents a hemispheric consensus will be elected.”

Kirchner and Da Silva announced their support for Rodríguez during a bilateral meeting held Tuesday.

Rodríguez has secured the support of 25 countries, including 15 members of the Caribbean Economic Community (CARICOM), Bolivia, Canada, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Rodríguez departed yesterday to Chile, and plans to continue on to Ecuador and Perú in an attempt to secure the support of those countries.

Representatives of the OAS’ 34 member states will meet in Quito, Ecuador, in June to elect the organization’s next Secretary General.

WHEN Enrique Uribe first opened Más x Menos de Cuesta de Moras in 1960, Costa Ricans were shocked by the concept of self service at a grocery store, an idea first introduced in New York in the 1930s.

Thieves will steal the goods right off the shelves, they thought. When customers did enter, some were so accustomed to being helped by attendants, they did not serve themselves.

“Instead, they called over an assistant and pointed to the shelf and said, ‘I want this can of beans,’” Javier Del Campo told an audience last week at a conference about the past, present and future of supermarkets in Costa Rica.

WHILE supermarkets have since become commonplace, there is plenty of room for growth in Costa Rica, according to Del Campo, director of corporate marketing for Corporación Supermercados Unidos (CSU), which includes the chains of Más x Menos, Hipermás, Palí and Maxibodega.

Fifty percent of the food that Costa Ricans purchase is bought in supermarkets, according to Del Campo. The rest is purchased at municipal markets, pulperías, farmers’ markets and specialty stores. In comparison, 70% of foods are purchased in supermarkets in Argentina and more than 90% in the United States, Del Campo said.

“The market (in Costa Rica) is still much larger than what supermarkets have,” he said.

CSU’S plans for expansion come as the Ministry of Agriculture tries to revitalize municipal markets, such as the Mercado Central in San José, a plan announced last month (TT, March 5). As San José has become saturated with supermarkets, CSU hopes to penetrate areas outside of the metropolitan area, including San Carlos, Guanacaste and Limón, Del Campo said.

The growth of CSU has been gradual compared to other chains, according to Del Campo.

In six years, for example, the chain Mega Super has expanded from two stores to more than 60, although 50 of those were buyouts of independent markets.

Since the first Más x Menos opened in 1960, CSU has grown to include 22 Más x Menos, 83 Palí, three Hipermás, and two MaxiBodega markets.

The latter two were established in 1998 and 2001, respectively. Most of CSU’s growth has happened within the past 20 years, because of the fact that Costa Ricans continued to shop primarily at traditional municipal markets through the 1970s, according to Del Campo.

IN the early 1980s, 25 supermarkets existed in Costa Rica. Today, there are more than 175 chain grocery stores and more than 100 independent supermarkets.

The economic crisis of the 1980s allowed for the growth of discount stores like Palí, which reduce service to allow lower prices. In Palí, for example, products are not removed from the boxes they are shipped in, there is no air conditioning or background music, and a much smaller selection of products is offered.

Shoppers at Palí are not tempted with expensive items, Del Campo said. Approximately 3,000 different products are offered at Palí, while more than 15,000 are sold at Más x Menos and between 45,000 and 60,000 products are offered at Hipermás.

THE effort to offer competitive, low prices is limited by the low number of suppliers that provide goods to the country’s supermarkets, according to Del Campo.

In the last three years, 24 companies provided more than 60% of the goods purchased by CSU, an extremely high concentration compared to other countries, according to CSU management.

Del Campo attributes the increase in popularity of supermarkets to the growth of cities, the increase in population density and a changing style of life.

WHILE people still shop at the 14,000 neighborhood pulperías throughout the country because of their convenient location near home, they also go to supermarkets to get everything they need in one place.

“The couple who both work don’t want to spend a lot of time shopping,” Del Campo said.

They also don’t want to spend a lot of time traveling. Developers believe customers should have to travel no more than 10 minutes to get to the supermarket, he said.

“We don’t have a car, so we have to come where it is close,” agreed Beatriz Castro, who shops at the Más x Menos in San Pedro, just east of San José.

SOME areas can support more than one supermarkets. Still, saturation of the market is one reason CSU is looking outside the Central Valley – and outside the country.

In addition to expanding the number of stores in Nicaragua – where CSU already operates five supermarkets under the name La Unión and 19 Palí stores (TT, Oct. 14, 2003) – the chain hopes to enter the market in Panama during the next year.

CSU also has formed an alliance with Guatemala’s supermarket chain La Fragua S.A. and the international supermarket operation Royal Ahold, to create an organization with 325 markets in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.

NEARLY a year after a former client filed a fraud complaint against Vinir Corporación S.A., the Costa Rican financial corporation is being investigated by the government – although not for the reasons two clients had hoped.

Earlier this month, the Central Bank announced in the official government newspaper La Gaceta that it is investigating 24 check-cashing transactions that took place at Vinir between December 2001 and April 2002.

The investigation aims to determine whether the company is in violation of Article 85 of the Organic Law of the Central Bank and the regulation of money-exchange operations.

SOME of the 39 checks exchanged in this period, totaling approximately $300,000, include transactions involving President Abel Pacheco, former Presidency Minister Rina Contreras and Public Works and Transport Minister Javier Chaves, according to the March 3 publication in La Gaceta.

One of the transactions involves Gramínea Plateada S.A., an account Pacheco claimed in October 2002 was opened by supporters during his campaign (TT, Oct. 25, 2002).

Pacheco was accused of using this and other accounts, and the Vinir money exchange services, to accept donations from foreigners, which is considered illegal for political parties under Costa Rica’s Electoral Code.

One particularly scrutinized transaction, also part of the investigation by the Central Bank, involves the exchange of a $25,000 check made out to Pacheco from Waked Internacional S.A., a Panamanian business whose president, Abdul Waked, reportedly was under investigation by the U.S. government for unspecified charges

(TT, Sept. 27, 2002).

ALTHOUGH these controversial transactions are involved in the current investigation of Vinir, neither Pacheco nor anyone else from the Social Christian Unity Party (PUSC) is being investigated by the Central Bank because campaign donations are not within the bank’s authority to investigate.

However, the Congressional Investigative Commission on Campaign Financing is investigating campaignfinancing irregularities both in the Unity Party and the National Liberation Party.

When concluded, the investigation could lead to possible reforms of campaign finance laws and sanctions against the parties, a spokeswoman from the Legislative Assembly told The Tico Times last week.

In the Central Bank investigation, only Vinir can be sanctioned if the corporation is found to have participated in unauthorized financial activities, and such a penalty would amount to a fine of 25% of the total amount negotiated in unauthorized transactions, according what was published in La Gaceta.

WHAT inspired the Central Bank’s decision to investigate the entity now is uncertain. Officials from the General Superintendence of Financial Entities (SUGEF), which is handling the investigation, said in a faxed response to Tico Times requests for information that they are not allowed to discuss ongoing investigations.

In the past, Vinir owner Vinicio Esquivel has maintained the Vinir exchange house was authorized to ex-change dollars and colones, including cashing checks from abroad (TT, Nov. 29, 2002).

The Tico Times was unable to reach Esquivel this week to comment on the investigation, as all known phone numbers of Vinir Corporación and Esquivel are no longer in service.

The lawyer whom a client of Esquivel’s and the daily Al Día identified as representing Esquivel – Marlen Abarca – did not return several phone calls from The Tico Times. Abarca’s secretary would not comment on whether she represents Esquivel.

TWO clients of Vinir, who last week told the The Tico Times they are still owed money by the company, said they have had equal difficulty locating Esquivel in recent months. They said they have not spoken to him since November, when his secretary and lawyer both repeatedly said he had fallen ill.

One of these clients, Robert Sharkey, said he asked SUGEF to investigate the Vinir Corporación for fraud in March 2003, to no avail. He claims the Vinir exchange house was just the front door to an investment scam that has left him minus more than $20,000.

Esquivel admitted to The Tico Times in November 2002 to encouraging clients to deposit money with Vinir Financial Services – a separate entity from the exchange house, he said.

CLIENTS reported that when they deposited foreign-issued checks with Vinir, they were offered the option of withdrawing the entire amount, effectively cashing the check, or changing it to local currency, for a 1% processing fee –or depositing some of the funds with Vinir Financial Services.

Esquivel and SUGEF both said Vinir Financial Services, which operated through a bank registered in the British Virgin Islands, was not authorized to operate in Costa Rica.

This unauthorized offshore banking service reportedly offered clients an annual 10% interest rate (TT, Aug. 29, 2003).

However, as the operations of Luis Enrique Villalobos, known as “The Brothers,” began to fall in 2002 (TT, Oct. 18, 2002) some Vinir clients began to claim Vinir Financial Services would not return their deposits.

Esquivel announced in late November 2002 that he would keep his exchange house open and offer his creditors a payback plan, although he insisted his troubles were not related to those of other investment scams.

He attributed most of his problems to the September 2002 closure of U.S.-based AmTrade International Bank, which he used for Vinir Financial Services, by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), and to the flooding of his trout farm in the Orosí region (TT, Nov. 29, 2002).

SHARKEY said his problem began in August 2002 when he went to Vinir to cash a check for $50,000. Although Sharkey had previously used the service at Vinir with no problem, instead of cashing the check, he was offered installments. These payments quickly fell from $5,000 to $239.

Sharkey has not received a payment since November 2002, and is still owed $22,100, according to his lawyer, Arcelio Hernández.

After getting no response to their complaint with SUGEF last March, Sharkey and Hernández filed a complaint with the Prosecutor’s Office in Pavas last August (TT, Aug. 29, 2003).

“We are still trying to reach an agreement, and (Esquivel’s) attorney says she is going to communicate with him,” said Hernández, who added that he has not talked to Esquivel’s attorney in a month. “We haven’t arrived at much willingness.”

SHARKEY said he has resigned to never seeing his money again. He considered filing a civil case against Esquivel, but later decided filing a case in the heavily burdened Costa Rican court system might mean he would “be here for the rest of my life, for the rest of many lives.”

Many investors considered Vinir one of the most reliable of the unregulated financial service operations in the country. Past clients claim he always paid his debts and stood by his word (TT, Aug. 29, 2003).

THE first series of bonds issued by pioneer gourmet coffee producer and distributor Café Britt, totaling ¢1 billion ($2.35 million), sold out before they went on sale on the country’s financial markets.

The bonds are part of two bond issues totaling ¢2 billion ($4.70 million) that Café Britt plans to sell to obtain funding for various projects aimed at expanding its distribution capacity.

The bonds were issued at 20.5% fixed interest over three years and divided into ¢1,000 ($2.34) titles. Individual investors were required to purchase at least ¢1 million in titles ($2,350).

The bonds begin generating interest on March 23 and will expire on March 23, 2007. The second series of bonds will be issued in March 2005, according to company representatives.

CONSIDERING them a sound investment, risk-rating agency Fitch Ratings gave Café Britt’s bonds an AA-(cri) rating, meaning they are “very high-quality investment-grade” bonds.

The bonds sold out immediately after their sale was announced. In fact, the demand surpassed supply by 50%.

“This means that while there were only ¢1 billion in bonds being sold, we received offers totaling ¢1.5 billion,” explained Guillermo Masís, president of Mercado de Valores, the firm in charge of selling the bonds.

STEVE Aronson, founder and president of Café Britt, highlighted the important role that acquiring private capital would play in the company’s future expansion plans.

“In 1997, we had a contract to sell our coffee at 150 Sam’s Club stores in the United States. That experience taught us a lot,” Aronson said. “It was then that we learned that to grow and play with the big ones, capital was needed. We then began a process of opening ourselves to capital.”

Before entering the market in search of investment capital, Britt went through several years of preparation and restructuring to ensure its venture would be a success.

THE company underwent five years of internal audits by accounting firm Ernst & Young (now KPMG), faced corporate restructuring, established a board of directors with members from outside the company and obtained ISO-9000 standard certification.

The company originally consdered the possibility of becoming an Initial Public Offering (IPO) – a publicly traded company – and set its sights on the NASDAQ Stock Market.

However, as a result of the volatility shown by U.S. markets and recent corporate scandals, such as the highly publicized Enron case, Britt managers changed their mind and decided to seek funds in the company’s home turf of Costa Rica.

IN the aftermath of corporate scandals, additional requirements were imposed on prospective IPOs that significantly increased the cost of going public, making it more difficult for small companies.

That’s the main reason why Britt chose to seek capital from Costa Rica’s financial markets, Aronson explained.

“This is where we started; it’s the place where people really know us,” he said.

The funds obtained from the bond issues will be used to transform a large warehouse the company recently bought between Santa Bárbara and Barva in Heredia, north of San José, into the company’s new international distribution center.

The center will be in charge of shipping coffee ordered through Britt’s hotline (1-800 GO BRITT) and Web site (www.cafebritt.com), to clients all over the world.

ARONSON said he sees venturing into the markets for capital as a logical next step for the company that will make it possible for it to continue to grow at a steady pace and keep up with growing customer demand.

Obtaining investment capital, he explained, is one of the main problems the coffee sector faces.

He said what Britt has managed to do by specializing in value-added coffee products and actively seeking additional capital for expansion constitutes “a new road” for the coffee industry.

Aronson said he expects even more opportunities to obtain capital in the future, particularly if the U.S.-Central America Free-Trade Agreement (CAFTA) is approved.

“We believe that under CAFTA, the country’s financial markets will become more open,” he said. “This will make foreign capital increasingly accessible.”

CAFÉ Britt began operations in 1985 as a coffee buying, roasting and marketing company. Since then, the company has expanded its offering to include more than 3,000 products and now employs more than 300 workers.

The company has six main sources of income – sales from the 10 Costa Rican arts and crafts stores it owns, sales of specialty coffee to supermarkets, hotels and gift shops, direct sales (mail-order and online), sales of green (un-roasted) coffee, wholesale roasted coffee sales and its renowned Coffee Tour and theater.

The company has been successful at diversifying its sources of income to the point that last year, coffee was responsible for only 52% of the company’s total revenues.

The company says its gift stores are now its main moneymaking activity.

In 2003, Britt’s sales totaled $21.1 million – $7.5 million more than the previous year. During the last decade, the company has boasted growth at an average rate of 41.9% a year.

FOR five weeks this summer, Costa Rica will host one of the most advanced performing arts-technology programs in the world. For the second year, The Institute of Digital Performing Arts will be holding a study-abroad program in the country.

IDPA is described by founder Amarante Lucero as “a cooperative between universities, businesses and art organizations in North, Central and hopefully soon South America.”

This year, the institute will feature courses on automated, or robotic, lighting, animatronic puppetry and sound and video production and distortion. Language and Costa Rican culture classes are also incorporated into the program.

“Our primary goal is to have students create work using new technology and also integrate themselves into Latin American culture,” Lucero says. “We’re here to learn and here to share.”

IDPA is the brainchild of Lucero, head of the Automated Lighting Program at the University of Texas at Austin. His involvement in Costa Rica began when he worked with the National Theater in 1985.

In 2001, after teaching a summer school course, Lucero brought several of his students to Costa Rica to put on an automated-lighting show. After a repeat visit the following year, Lucero began working to organize an official program that would actually take place in Costa Rica.

Having been involved with the Central American performing arts scene for years, Lucero says he chose Costa Rica for a variety of reasons.

“The people are great and there is also growing base of technology,” he says.

The great climate, the bicultural experience students receive and the ability to take weekend excursions solidified his decision.

LAST year, 10 students attended, primarily from U.S. universities but also some from Costa Rica. This summer the program will include 15 to 20 participants. Each class will be taught twice – in English and Spanish.

During the five weeks, students work toward producing a show that will be open to the public. Last year, it was held at the National Auditorium in the Children’s Museum and likely will be held there again this year. This year’s program may include automated lighting, work from the sound and video courses and the presentation of new puppet work, focusing on animatronics – similar to the puppetry used currently in the Broadway production of the Lion King.

“The core of what we do is to touch an audience,” says Lucero. “Technology gives us a more effective way to do that.”

The program is open to everyone over 18, regardless of performing arts background. Students may take up to two classes during the session. Lucero is also looking to hold several one-week workshops on things the program’s core courses don’t necessarily cover, such as television lighting or make up. These workshops would also be open to the public.

BECAUSE it is a fledgling program, it has primarily grown by word of mouth.

Lucero has done little to advertise the program in an effort to keep the number of applications relatively low during these first few years. Once accepted into the program, enrollment is first come, first served.

Although last year’s group was small, Lucero says he was ecstatic with the response he had from students.

“One of the most precious moments is the ‘Ahh’ experience, when people put art and technology together and it just clicks,” Lucero says of the most rewarding part of IDPA.

Each year, IDPA brings in more than a ton of high-tech equipment specifically for the program. Although all equipment is currently loaned, rented or owned by a university, Lucero hopes to soon have enough money that the program can purchase its own lighting and sound tools and leave some of them in Costa Rica.

“IT’S so important to leave the technology,” Lucero says. “You can’t just give them this seed and show them how to use it and then take it home. It’s a tool and if you put it in their hands it will bloom.”

As for the future of the program, Lucero says because of the ever-evolving technology, the program will always be moving forward.

“The great thing about technology is that it changes so quickly that we’ll never run out,” says Lucero.

For more info, see www.idpacostarica.org.