The Global Financial Crisis, as it is being called, is clearly the number 1 topic of discussion. Economists and politicians have weighed in from all sides to paint a universal picture of despair. However, one economist, Peter Schiff, accurately states, “There is always a bull market somewhere.” There is mounting evidence that Costa Rica is that “somewhere” and one would be wise to look at the fundamentals of why Costa Rica maintains a strong position amid global weakness.

Costa Rica is ranked the 8th most stable country in the world. A March 2009 study by The Economist Intelligence Unit, in collaboration with George Mason University, has identified the most politically and economically stable countries amid the global economic meltdown. Using 17 measures that encompass social structures, economic statistics, political structure and history, the report was compiled from a comprehensive study of 164 nations.

1. Norway
2. Denmark
3. Canada
4. Sweden
5. Finland
6. Switzerland
7. Mauritius
8. Costa Rica
9. New Zealand
10. Luxembourg

Other notable rankings include: USA 56th, Nicaragua 77th, Mexico 87th, and Panama is ranked 131st. For the full report visit: http://www.scribd.com/doc/13490559/EIU-Special-Report-Manning-the-Barricades

Solid real estate values: Costa Rica’s real estate market remains stable because private capital and foreign buyers primarily drive it. Whereas the market in the United States is critically dependent on institutional financing and the job market, both of which have been recently decimated. With the expected explosion of retiring baby boomers, demand for property in Costa Rica is poised for long-term growth. Furthermore, other popular retirement locations like Mexico are less attractive now because of increased crime, while high taxes, expensive health care, and general cost of living plague Florida or Arizona, making retirement in the U.S. nearly impossible for many Americans. Costa Rica clearly represents an oasis for retirement abroad.

Costa Rica is a developing country: By definition, a developing country is in a state of growth. Costa Rica now boasts an unemployment rate less than that of the United States and has some of the best social indicators on the planet. Furthermore, with the arrival of CAFTA, privatization will be introduced, which will update or replace inefficient national systems, thus creating more jobs across the board and strengthening overall growth opportunities. Road conditions are not only improving dramatically, but as new highway initiatives are completed, the country’s key locations will be connected, thus creating more efficient business transportation as well as offering the tourist ease of transit between destinations. Major companies such as Pfizer, Amazon and Western Union, are seeing growth potential and have increased their staff in Costa Rica, even as they have downsized worldwide.

History of stability: Costa Rica is more protected than its North American and European counterparts during any crisis, because of its unique political stability, strong social structures, a large middle class, and a strict lending environment.  Costa Rica’s economy is rooted in reality; credit has always been difficult to obtain, and there is a cultural lack of consumerism. Although real estate continues to increase in value, it is not likely for there to be such a universal “bubble” as was seen in the United States, simply because there is not a subprime lending environment, or “easy credit” to encourage people to use their house as a source of cash. These stable financial indicators combined with an educated work force and investment-friendly tax policies will continue to keep Costa Rica’s economy stable.

Healthy tourism: Costa Rica still derives most of its income from tourism. It stands as the most visited nation in Central America, with nearly 2 million foreign visitors per year, a higher per capita rate than other popular destinations such as Mexico, Dominican Republic, and Brazil. Furthermore, with popular expat destinations such as Mexico experiencing increased instability, Costa Rica offers a safe haven. Moreover, Costa Rica continues to gain popularity for its strong stance on the environment, which has led to a ranking of 5th in the world on the 2008 Environmental Performance Index rating (an index developed by Yale University)—up from 15th place in 2006. This trend will continue as more channels are opening for those interested in ecotourism and sustainable living.

Recent accolades for Costa Rica:

• New York Times Op-Ed Columnist Thomas Friedman says that ‘more than any nation I’ve ever visited, Costa Rica is insisting that economic growth and environmentalism work together’.
• Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy’s 2008 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) ranked Costa Rica as number 5 of 149 countries on 25 indicators tracked across six established policy categories
• Costa Rica President Oscar Arias is aiming to reduce the country’s net carbon emission to zero by 2021
• The Natural Resources Defense Council lists Costa Rica as a BioGem. ‘Designating Costa Rica as a BioGem reflects NRDC’s determination to support the country’s commitment to achieve carbon neutrality and become a model for the world,’ said Peter Lehner, NRDC’s Executive Director.
• In the year 2007, the Plant a Tree campaign set a goal to plant 5 million trees – the goal was surpassed by almost 1 million trees placing Costa Rica as the number one country in the world for planted trees per capita.
• Wall Street legend Henry Kaufman believes Costa Rica’s cost of living and relatively inexpensive world class medical care will propel growth to double digit GNP over the next 20 years as retirement communities, assisted living and nursing care facilities are developed.
• The last World Bank survey for Global Governance Indicators ranks Costa Rica in first place within Latin America for political stability.
• In March 2009 The Economist Intellegence Unit ranked Costa Rica as the world’s eighth most politically stable country.

China: Regardless of politics, the fact that China has begun to invest in a country the size of West Virginia bodes well for Costa Rica on many levels. Costa Rica already has been the recipient of a new $83 million, 35,000-seat stadium donated by China; and now there are talks of a new $65 million dollar science and business center. Added to this is the fact that the Chinese people are increasing their wealth and are now beginning to travel in earnest. China is building 40 new airports in order to accommodate departures from their country. It is estimated that the Chinese will be the largest group of travelers in the world, perhaps numbering 115 million in coming years. Costa Rica is now on their radar, and by virtue of sheer numbers, the Chinese will dramatically enhance business and tourism in Costa Rica.

True, the world economy is gloomy, and no country is completely immune from the fallout, but the fact that Costa Rica is a developing country, changing in fundamentally beneficial ways for the tourist, retiree and investor, presents a positive and exciting alternative for those desperately seeking some good news.

Choosing a retirement location in Costa Rica has many variables for you to consider.  You must evaluate what is important for you to be comfortable such as climate, access to airports, shopping, services, and, perhaps most important, medical services.  It seems that access to medical services is paramount for retirees.
Atenas, known for its wonderful climate and tranquil atmosphere, has become a retirement haven for many foreigners.  Located about halfway between San José and the central Pacific beaches, Atenas is convenient to both city services and top tourist locations, while offering cool mountain breezes and a friendly social climate.
Besides offering foreign retirees a plethora of stores and restaurants, Atenas also provides for basic medical services including a new public clinic (CAJA), a private clinic, Red Cross ambulance service, testing laboratories, OBGYNs, dentists, chiropractors,  alternative medicine clinics, optometrists, and numerous pharmacies.  Many of these establishments have English-speaking professionals.

Public Clinic in Atenas

The public clinic is a clean new building that is well equipped to handle emergencies and minor ailments.  They will service foreigners for a nominal fee, but one can expect longer lines here.  The Red Cross ambulance service is free (as they operate from donations), however they only transport to CAJA hospitals.
The most popular clinic among foreigners is Linea Vital (www.LineaVitalCR.com), which is a private clinic and ambulance service. Dr. Candy Midence Noguera and chief paramedic Jorge Morera Sanchez operate the clinic.  They are both fluent in English and Spanish.  Their services include emergency treatment, non-emergency medical transport, home visits, office visits, consultations, physicals, and hospice care.  Their fees are $50 for an office visit and $70 for a home visit.  Linea Vital also offers membership programs that cover their full range of services.

English-speaking Private Clinic & Ambulance

The local dentists, chiropractors and other specialists in Atenas have the modern equipment and techniques that foreigners from North America or Europe are accustomed to.  However, they are far less expensive than their counterparts in the “developed” world.  You will be surprised by how warmly you will be treated, and how much time each of these professionals will spend with you.  You will definitely not get the impression that you are a number to them.
Retirees will find that the pharmacies are convenient and helpful, and have just about every medication and prescription imaginable.  In addition, they each have a doctor on–site to administer shots and issue good advice regarding prescriptions.
Atenas is also blessed to be located just 45 minutes to the Escazú–San José area, which is home to many private medical services.  Costa Rica is fast becoming an off-shore medical paradise for foreigners who suffer from the high costs of services in their native countries (especially Americans).  The industry began with inexpensive plastic surgery, followed by advanced dentistry, and has now blossomed to cover nearly every modern medical procedure.

CIMA Hospital Escazu Costa Rica

CIMA Hospital (www.hospitalcima.com), which is ranked the best private hospital in Central America, is very convenient from Atenas.  Furthermore, Atenas has two entrances to the new Caldera Highway (expected completion 2010) which will dramatically reduce the driving time to CIMA.  CIMA, affiliated with Baylor University Hospital, can handle any major medical procedure and has a variety of specialists from every field.  Nearly all doctors at CIMA speak some English, if not fluently.  Indeed, many have been trained at U.S. institutions.

If you are seeking a quiet retirement town in Costa Rica that provides convenience to top-quality medical care, you will discover Atenas has it all.

Costa Rica Medical Tourism

Costa Rica continues its recent streak of winning high praise for its environmentalism.  An April 15th article in Forbes magazine named The World’s Cleanest Countries, using measurements such as:

EPI’s environmental health ranking, which measures the effects of pollution on human health. A second broad measure, ecosystem vitality, measures the health of fisheries, the amount of  green house gases a country pumps into the air and how well it preserves the diversity of its plants and animals.

Costa Rica is mentioned in the article.  A few developing nations break into the top 10 of the rankings. Costa Rica has a per-capita gross domestic product of $11,600, but ranks fifth overall as it protects its forests and rich biodiversity, both lures for ecotourists.
The study was conducted in collaboration with Environmental Performance Index (EPI), Columbia University’s Center for International Earth Science Information Network, and Yale University’s Center for Environmental Law and Policy.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/15/worlds-cleanest-countries-business-energy-clean-countries.html

Learn about Sustainable Development In Costa Rica

Costa Rica has recently been in the New York Times spotlight, and Easter Sunday that light shone on us again. In an Op-Ed Column titled “(No) Drill, Baby, Drill” columnist Thomas L. Friedman highlights some of the many ways in which the Costa Rican government has prioritized the environment with their legislation. Most poignantly, he is incredulous that Costa Rica only recently discovered oil, and once it had it decided to ban off-shore drilling. “Costa Rica discovered its own oil five years ago but decided to ban drilling — so as not to pollute its politics or environment! What country bans oil drilling?”

It’s not surprising that Costa Rica has received main stream attention in the past few months. As environmental concerns become more widely discussed, and as the general population becomes more aware of the dangers of their current lifestyle, attention will shift to people and communities who have already thought through these issues. Costa Rica has been a leader in green thinking since the early nineties. And since many green practices and initiatives can take time to show results, we are well ahead of the curve is demonstrating how seamless and powerful the transition can be.

Sailing down Costa Rica’s Tempisque River on an eco-tour, I watched a crocodile devour a brown bass with one gulp. It took only a few seconds. The croc’s head emerged from the muddy waters near the bank with the footlong fish writhing in its jaws. He crunched it a couple of times with razor-sharp teeth and then, with just the slightest flip of his snout, swallowed the fish whole. Never saw that before.

These days, visitors can still see amazing biodiversity all over Costa Rica — more than 25 percent of the country is protected area — thanks to a unique system it set up to preserve its cornucopia of plants and animals. Many countries could learn a lot from this system.

More than any nation I’ve ever visited, Costa Rica is insisting that economic growth and environmentalism work together. It has created a holistic strategy to think about growth, one that demands that everything gets counted. So if a chemical factory sells tons of fertilizer but pollutes a river — or a farm sells bananas but destroys a carbon-absorbing and species-preserving forest — this is not honest growth. You have to pay for using nature. It is called “payment for environmental services” — nobody gets to treat climate, water, coral, fish and forests as free anymore.

The process began in the 1990s when Costa Rica, which sits at the intersection of two continents and two oceans, came to fully appreciate its incredible bounty of biodiversity — and that its economic future lay in protecting it. So it did something no country has ever done: It put energy, environment, mines and water all under one minister.

“In Costa Rica, the minister of environment sets the policy for energy, mines, water and natural resources,” explained Carlos M. Rodríguez, who served in that post from 2002 to 2006. In most countries, he noted, “ministers of environment are marginalized.” They are viewed as people who try to lock things away, not as people who create value. Their job is to fight energy ministers who just want to drill for cheap oil.

But when Costa Rica put one minister in charge of energy and environment, “it created a very different way of thinking about how to solve problems,” said Rodríguez, now a regional vice president for Conservation International. “The environment sector was able to influence the energy choices by saying: ‘Look, if you want cheap energy, the cheapest energy in the long-run is renewable energy. So let’s not think just about the next six months; let’s think out 25 years.’ ”

As a result, Costa Rica hugely invested in hydro-electric power, wind and geo-thermal, and today it gets more than 95 percent of its energy from these renewables. In 1985, it was 50 percent hydro, 50 percent oil. More interesting, Costa Rica discovered its own oil five years ago but decided to ban drilling — so as not to pollute its politics or environment! What country bans oil drilling?

Rodríguez also helped to pioneer the idea that in a country like Costa Rica, dependent on tourism and agriculture, the services provided by ecosystems were important drivers of growth and had to be paid for. Right now, most countries fail to account for the “externalities” of various economic activities. So when a factory, farmer or power plant pollutes the air or the river, destroys a wetland, depletes a fish stock or silts a river — making the water no longer usable — that cost is never added to your electric bill or to the price of your shoes.

Costa Rica took the view that landowners who keep their forests intact and their rivers clean should be paid, because the forests maintained the watersheds and kept the rivers free of silt — and that benefited dam owners, fishermen, farmers and eco-tour companies downstream. The forests also absorbed carbon.

To pay for these environmental services, in 1997 Costa Rica imposed a tax on carbon emissions — 3.5 percent of the market value of fossil fuels — which goes into a national forest fund to pay indigenous communities for protecting the forests around them. And the country imposed a water tax whereby major water users — hydro-electric dams, farmers and drinking water providers — had to pay villagers upstream to keep their rivers pristine. “We now have 7,000 beneficiaries of water and carbon taxes,” said Rodríguez. “It has become a major source of income for poor people. It has also enabled Costa Rica to actually reverse deforestation. We now have twice the amount of forest as 20 years ago.”

As we debate a new energy future, we need to remember that nature provides this incredible range of economic services — from carbon-fixation to water filtration to natural beauty for tourism. If government policies don’t recognize those services and pay the people who sustain nature’s ability to provide them, things go haywire. We end up impoverishing both nature and people. Worse, we start racking up a bill in the form of climate-changing greenhouse gases, petro-dictatorships and bio-diversity loss that gets charged on our kids’ Visa cards to be paid by them later. Well, later is over. Later is when it will be too late.

Natural Costa Rica

Natural Resource Defense Council names Costa Rica “BioGem”

The Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) has, for the first time, named a country a “BioGem” in recognizing Costa Rica for its efforts in becoming the first carbon-neutral country. NRDC has been campaigning to save over thirty unique exotic sites, which are home to endangered wildlife, since 2001. They have also campaigned to curb global warming and increase environmental sustainability in local communities.

NRDC has redesigned its website with new features so that users can more actively participate in protection efforts. The organization is working with the Energy and Environment Ministry to identify procedures that will help the country meet its commitment of becoming the first nation to be “carbon-neutral” by 2021.

Additionally NRDC also signed an agreement with the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) regarding renewable energy projects and overall energy efficiency. The Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE) has partnered with NRDC for a rejuvenation project that will plant 30,000 trees to partially restore a natural rainforest. These actions will of course help to strengthen Costa Rica’s overall environmental efforts. The Carrizo Plain National Monument in California and the Peace-Athabasca Delta in Canada were also added to the list of BioGems.

Article is from the Costa Rica Green Building Council:

http://www.crgbc.org/