Costa Rica News - Oct 23, 2005

At Last! Pacheco Sends TLC to Congress

As expected, Costa Ricans president, Abel Pacheco de la Espriella, sent the proposed Tratado Libre de Comercio (TLC) - Central American Free Trade Agreement with the United States - to the Legislative Assembly on Friday, giving lawmakers an opportunity to join the free trade deal before it becomes law, likely next year.

Despite opposition, the president kept his word, promising earlier last week, to send the TLC to Congress when he returned from his trip to Spain.

Costa Rica is the last country yet to approve CAFTA. Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic have already ratify the agreement.

United Airlines Launches Liberia Service

United is launching new service Dec. 17 through April 29 from Chicago to Liberia, Guanacaste in Costa Rica, just in time for the winter holidays.

"The new service is exactly what our customers in the United States areseeking, particularly during the winter vacation season," said Greg Taylor,United's senior vice president-Planning. "The Pacific side of Costa Rica and its growing resort community is an extremely popular vacation destination."

Investment flow

Latin America is receiving this year a strong inflow of private foreign investment, and Costa Rica is benefiting from it.

The Institute of International Finance, which takes in the 340 major banks around the world, estimates that foreign investment will reach us$46.2 billion in the region this year, 50% more than in 2004 and 17% more than early estimates.

The arrival of strong foreign currency to Costa Rica is reflected in the dollar reserves, which increased from us$1.9 billion last January to us$2.4 billion in September, according to data from the Central Bank.

Poker Industry Expo Coming to Costa Rica in December

Costa Rica, one of the prime bases of the internet gaming industry, is getting ready for the Poker Industry Expo, scheduled for December 3-4. The expo and conference will take place at the Barcelo San José Palacio.

Topics to be discussed will cover the areas of poker room management, new poker related technologies, marketing for poker, payment issues and customer service. The main goal of the conference is to improve poker player awareness, in order to increase both player conversions and player retention.

223,000 Surfers Visited Costa Rica

According to the Instituto Costarricense de Turismo (ICT) - Costa Rican Tourism Board - 20.5% (223,000) of the tourists who arrived by air in 2004 were attracted by the excellent surfing conditions that many a Costa Rica beach has to offer, both on the Pacific and the Caribbean coasts.

The chairman of the Costa Rican Surf Association, Antonio Pilurzu, said that the current trend is a marked increase from the numbers for 2001, where 101,014 surfers accounted for 12.4% of the tourists visiting Costa Rica.

In total, some 1.1 million tourists visited Costa Rica for in 2004. More than 1.5 million are expected for 2005.

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