Costa Rica News - Jan 12, 2005

Costa Rica and life expectancy

Costa Ricans are a healthy people. The infant mortality rate of less than 11 in 100,000 live births in Costa Rica is lower than that in the United States. This figure is on par with any industrialized country in the world. Life expectancy is 76.3 years for men and 79.8 years for women. Today, an 80 year old man has a life expectancy of at least 8 years more. This puts Costa Rica in first place in the world for life expectancy from this age forward. Actually it's 8.4 years. Iceland and Japan follow with 7.7 years. The Costa Rica women at age 80 are actually expected to live longer than the men of the same age, 9.5 years slightly behind the women of Japan and France.

Tourism
More Tourism This Year - From January through May this year, 556,412 tourists visited Costa Rica, a 23.5 percent increase as compared to the same period last year, according to figures supplied by official sources at international airports

Exports
Costa Rican beer is now available in the U.S. - Black Eagle, the U.S. company in charge of importing the beer to California, the local firm expects to export 60,000 cases in the first year and to take the figure to 1 million in the second one. Market probes show that Imperial has a large acceptance level among Californians, and that at least 1 million of them have acquired a taste for it while visiting here.

Human development
Progress in Human Development - Costa Rica climbed just one bit in the Human Development Index of the United Nations Program for Development, as compared to the one disclosed last year, but kept her steady upward trend since the Index was first published in 1990. The assessment is based on data from two years before and the grades range from 0 to 1 when Costa Rica was graded 0.834 in 2004, as compared to 0.832 in 2003. The variables considered for the Index include life expectancy, access to education, and income. In Latin America, only Argentina and Chile did better than Costa Rica, which is 45th among 177 nations. According to the figures, Costa Rica is among the "countries with high human development," since it is among the top 55 nations in the Index.

Two New Highways Promise to Improve the Infrastructure in the Central Pacific region

The new highway from Ciudad Colón in the Central Valley and the other highway from Quepos to Dominical will create a costal version of the Pan- American highway. The trip by car from the Central Valley to Jacó beach will take just over an hour. And the trip from Quepos to Dominical will be less than 30 minutes. There will be a building boom in the area and land prices are expected to soar. Many smart investors are buying now.

Flight Information Now Available on Line

Ever gone to the airport to meet friends, only to find that flight is delayed? What do you don? Hang around and come back later? Need to know if your departing flight is leaving on time?

Alterra Partners, the managers of the Juan Santamaria International airport have finally come to the rescue. Since the beginning, Alterra installed television monitors at the arrivals and departures level to give flight information, including the telephone numbers of the airlines that have service to the airport.Now, however, you can consult flight information online. Arrivals and departure times of all flights, same information on the television monitors at the airport, are now available on line.

www.alterra.co.cr is the website that has all information about the airport, it's facilities and services and Alterra itself. Now, before leaving for the airport, visit http://www.alterra.co.cr/FIWS/index.aspx and check on the status of your particular flight.

A Costa Rican appeals court judge ordered the former head of the Organization of American States, Miguel Angel Rodríguez, jailed Friday while prosecutors prepare corruption charges against him for allegedly accepting kickbacks when he was the nation's president. It appears that former Miguel Angel Rodríguez is not happy with his current living arrangements and has is appealing to the Sala IV - the Constitutional Court - in a Habeas Corpus action to return him to house arrest instead of spending the next six months in preventive detention in La Reforma prison.

Calderón Fournier, another former president, is also incarcerated and facing charges of corruption.

San Jose Real estate
South Pacific Real Estate