According to Costa Rica's former trade minister, Alberto Trejos, Cuba, whose halting reforms have failed to energize the island’s stagnant, centralized economy, may have a thing or two to learn from Costa Rica – which over the last 30 years has made strides in slashing poverty, promoting trade and luring foreign direct investment.
Carlos Sojo was not only one of the most brilliant academics of his generation in Costa Rica and Latin America, but also he was a great human being. Statistics and concepts pained him, almost as much as people did. He was an expert on poverty, but he was most pained by people living in poverty.
Six months after taking office President Luis Guillermo Solís outlined – in a 560-page document – a roadmap for his administration that includes a promise to reduce Costa Rica’s extreme poverty rate by 45 percent by 2018, the year he leaves Casa Presidencial.
San José ranks second among 22 cities from Central America and the Dominican Republic for doing business, according to the World Bank report “Doing Business 2015,” presented Monday.
In my two previous columns we discussed the basics and some of the details of how to start a company in Costa Rica. Now we’re going to take the topic a step further, describing the responsibilities of the shareholders to make the new company a reality.
Late last month Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro went on TV to decree a ban on street sales of coffee, eggs, shampoo and some 50 other "regulated" items whose prices are capped by the government. He ordered the National Guard to police market stalls for such items as mayonnaise and powdered milk, and threatened to prosecute recidivist violators.
Economic concerns were front and center in the annual report on the state of Costa Rica, which highlighted topics like unemployment, inequality, poverty and the deficit. After 20 years of economic growth, the report’s authors said that Costa Rica has yet to make significant gains in human development.
Last week, some 350 people attended an economic forum at Costa Rica’s Hotel Barceló San José Palacio hosted by the business magazine Summa. The forum, titled “Costa Rica: Where Are We Going?” featured panels of experts and insiders who examined issues such as the country’s economic growth, its fiscal deficit and setting the economy back on track. But they also focused on politics – and one particular party. (Hint, it wasn't Liberation.)
Today, privately held Grupo Pellas runs four sugar mills, produces ethanol and provides the raw material for Pellas' Flor de Caña brand of rum. The group controls more than 20 companies, with stakes in media, distribution, insurance, citrus, health care and auto dealerships. It boasts $1.5 billion in annual sales — equal to 13 percent of Nicaragua's gross domestic product.
Central America’s leading and most successful English-language news source announced today the launch of a new real estate section aimed at bringing together the news site’s international and local readership with property owners’ diverse offerings.
