RIO DE JANEIRO — Petroleo Brasileiro Chief Executive Officer Maria das Gracas Foster and five of her top managers stepped down amid a corruption probe that's wiped out billions of dollars of the oil producer's market value and threatens Brazil's economic revival.
Exports of Costa Rican beef to China increased by more than 700 percent in one year, according Leonardo Murillo, a livestock research coordinator at the Costa Rican Cattle Corporation.
Vice President and Finance Minister Helio Fallas announced on Tuesday that the government will conduct an evaluation of all salary incentives and policies at public banks, following an investigation by the Comptroller General's Office last month. The investigation found that salary incentives and bonuses are hurting credit options for people and for small businesses.
President Luis Guillermo Solís and Muhtar Kent, CEO of U.S. soft-drink giant Coca-Cola, met at Casa Presidencial Wednesday morning to discuss the company’s expansion here and an initiative to incorporate more diverse producers into the company’s supply chain.
The Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court, or Sala IV, on Wednesday evening ruled three articles of the country's Corporate Tax Law unconstitutional, and as a result, collection will be suspended starting next year. The tax must be paid this year, however, by this Saturday's deadline.
A report made public this week by Costa Rica's Comptroller General's Office notes that from 2006-2012, three of the country's public banks spent ₡100 billion ($185 million) on salary incentives and bonuses for employees, which is the equivalent of almost a quarter of their total profits.
A recent wave of layoffs across several sectors of the economy — from Wendy’s to Avianca — has culminated in more than 228,000 unemployed Costa Ricans at the end of the third quarter of 2014, according to figures from the National Statistics and Census Institute.
Fitch Ratings downgraded its outlook on Costa Rica’s sovereign debt from “stable” to “negative” in a statement released Thursday morning. Despite the negative outlook, Fitch maintained its BB+ rating for the debt.
WASHINGTON, D. C. — U.S. President Barack Obama, who took office six years ago amid a historic recession and two U.S. wars, declared unequivocally Tuesday that the nation had clawed its way out of those dire straits, praising Americans for their resilience but also pointedly taking credit for leading the way.
President Luis Guillermo Solís signed an executive order Tuesday establishing a committee to coordinate 75 development projects and initiatives ranging from sewers to job training for the country’s depressed Caribbean region. The president also named writer and intellectual Quince Duncan head of the Commission on Afro-Descendent Affairs during his weekly press conference at Casa Presidencial.
