The US announced yesterday that the CAFTA treaty would not go into effect January 1st as agreed by the ratifying countries.  Most of the Central American countries that have ratified the agreement, must also pass additional legistlation to comply with the terms of the treaty.  Particularly legistlation regarding intellectual property rights and customs. 

During his most recent to Costa Rica as a special guest for the Festival of Lights, Franklin Chang revealed plans to open a 100% Costa Rican Laboratory here in the country.

The lab will be a subsidiary of his company Ad Astra Technologies Inc. The company is working on development of Chang’s plasma motor and the lab here will support that work. Only Costa Ricans will be hired, many that have worked with Chang in NASA or who have worked in other countries.

The importance for Chang is that Costa Rica can export space technology and at the same time keep local talent employed here: ” Here we have a natural resource that is even better than biodiversity, it is the gray matter. We have people who are capable and highly educated, now instead of going to Switzerland, Germany, or England, they can stay here because we are going to pay them well. “

Last week the ICT board of directors approved plans for 370 slip marina in the Papagayo Bay. The project was presented by Ecodesarollo Papagayo, who will build the marina and other facilities within a 44 hectare parcel on the bay. The initial investment will be $15 million.

Last week the INS sold 10,247 insurance policies for cell phones. The policy is only available for telephones operating under the new GSM system, since they have an electronic serial number IMEI. This number allows the ICE to block the phone from the network, no matter whether or not a new SIM chip is installed.

The annual policy costs 7.25 % of the value of the telephone, a phone that is worth 100,000 colones pays a premium of 7250 colones. The insurance covers the purchase price of the phone in case of theft.

Ticos set a new record for text messages on Christmas Eve, probably due to the 153,000 new users that have purchased new lines in December. The previous record was 11 million messages, during a soccer match between Alajuela and Saprissa. On a normal day 8 - 9 million messages are sent.

Since ICE charges a rate of 1.5 colones per message sent to an email address or to another phone, the new record generated a Christmas bonus of 21 million Colones for the ICE.

So far so good according to tourists and officials in Liberia and Alajuela.  In the peak travel week starting now, Al Dia interviewed officials and users at the airport:

Gary B. Midwinter, arrived to the LIberia airport from Canada and said "I’ve been on my feet for an hour and a half. There are enough personnel, but the service could be quicker.  On a scale of 1 to 10 I’d give it a 5."  He and his wife thought that the customs lines were long and more chairs for waiting are needed.

Adelina Geis from Panama said "the service here in Liberia was good. I would only look to improve the board system when they are charter flights"

Miguel Angel Mojic, of Mexico said " In Juan Santamaria the service is faster than before, there are more booths, and I didn’t have to go through such long lines"

Juliana Feano, from Miami rate Juan Santamaria hightly "This is my favorite airport, because the paperwork is faster than in other places."

The Liberia airport administrator, Analive Rosales, explained that on Saturdays about 1,500 people enter the country and another 1,500 leave. Now there are 25 immigration agents and more customs personnel to improve the attention.  For high season, the number of weekly flights increased from 21 to 35 by American Airlines, Continental, Delta, US Airways y United.

The lines were back on Thursday as ICE opened up the sale of phone lines on a first come, first served basis. At one of the main ICE agencies on 2nd avenue, 250 numbers were given out to people in line at 10:00 am. People who did not get a number had to return on Friday. Some lucky number recipients had been in line since 4:00 am.

In other locations lines were long early, but in the afternoon every customer who arrived could be served after a short wait.

According to Orlando Cascante, Manager of Mobile Services at ICE, in 10 days 90,000 lines have been activated. ICE will be activating lines until December 23rd, and will return to work on January 2nd.

CINDE the office of export and development, announced that 4 U.S. companies involved in medical services and products will expand operations here in 2006.  Inamed (silicon implants), Arthrocare (surgical equipment), Point Tecnologies (metallic implements) and PPC Industries (plastics) will invest a combined total of $30 million and create 700 new jobs here.  In the bilingual employment fair, service companies announced that they need 5000 bilingual employees during 2006.  English of course, but also French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Mandarin speaking employees are needed.

The Minister of Tourism, Rodrigo Castro, said that tourism increased by 15% this year, with a projection of 1.6 million tourists by the end of 2005.  60% were from the US.

Today there will be no ferry service from Puntarenas to Paquera, since repairs will be carried out on the dock at Paquera. 

The Costa Rican government will slash taxes by half on hybrid vehicles, electric cars, and some motorcycles that enter the country.  Fortunately, the measure is to take effect by decree, so does not need to go to the assembly for debate.  The Finance Ministry has the decree, cutting the tax from 30% to 15%, but does not know when it will take effect since it must be published by the Executive Branch.

The Toyota Prius is the only hybrid car sold here currently, and the tax cut will slash 2.7 million Colones from the current price tag of 18 million.  ($36,600)  The car has a suggested price of $21,725 in the US. The importers of used cars oppose the measure, calling it discriminatory. 

The Chamber of Construction, College of Architects, and the Council of Real Estate Developers is studying a proposal for taking CONAVI (National Roadways Council) and the Finance Ministry to court. The case would be based on the fact that CONAVI takes over 1 year to award contracts for projects that are approved.  The Finance Ministry has withheld tax money specifically collected for CONAVI, despite a decision by the Supreme Court ordering it to release the funds. The developers believe that the state of the road network is a national emergency, and most Costa Ricans would agree.