While the United States may still be the richest nation on Earth, it can’t claim to be as happy as Denmark or Finland. In fact, according to a new analysis of data provided by the Gallup World Poll, the relationship between overall life satisfaction and wealth may not be as straightforward as previously thought.

Looking at data collected across 132 countries, the Gallup Organization based their marks — released this month in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology — on representative samples of more than 136,000 people in each country. Respondents were asked how they would rate their lives on a scale from zero (worst possible) to 10 (best possible), as well as answering a series of questions on positive or negative emotions.

See Gallup’s top 15 countries, each with a mean score between 7.0 and 7.7, HERE

Inside Costa Rica
The exchange rate band system that is used to the fix the price of the dollar will cease to apply in the country as the Banco Central de Costa Rica (BCCR) – the Central Bank - moves to a “managed float” system.

That was the announcement yesterday by the Central Bank’s new president, Rodrigo Bolaños, during a press conference, which, until recently the head of the bank, Francisco de Paula Gutiérrez, took the opportunity to announce his retirement after seven years leading the monetary policies of the country, handing over to his successor the sawdust, nails and screws of the bank.

Jokingly, Gutiérrez told Bolaños that the most dangerous of the bank was the sawdust of the sawing of the wooden floors, while the nails and screws are the problems to come along the way.

“The major challenge is to find ways to consolidate the move to a floating exchange rate and to consolidate inflation to one one digit and not the current 10% to 15% range”, said Bolaños.

The new bank president said that from a certain point of view the system of band met its objectives of the Central Bank at the time, maintaining interests rate and inflation low and controlling the amount of money in circulation.

However, this system (bans) is also responsible for so much fluctuations in the price of the dollar, which needs to be stabilized.

Bolaños did not say when the change will occur, for the bank’s board of directors have yet to establish the rules of the intermediation.

“With the managed float system, the Central Bank wants to consolidate its control so that it can fulfill its inflation targets”, said Bolaños.

Outgoing president, Francisco de Paula Gutiérrez, highlighted yesterday his main achievement of his term in achieving a low inflation rate, but regretted not being able to change the bank’s process of intervention.

Technology ‘Fundamental’ to Development

Microsoft manager says Costa Rica is on track to become a developed nation

By Adam Williams
Tico Times Staff | awilliams@ticotimes.net

An often-mentioned goal of President Laura Chinchilla’s administration is to transform Costa Rica into the first “developed” country in Latin America.

Powerpoint: Juan Pablo Consuegra, the Microsoft Corporation’s general manager in Costa Rica, discusses the importance of technology and how the company is supporting Costa Rica’s national goals and projects.

Francesco Vicenzi | Tico Times

The recipe for success in achieving that goal will require many ingredients, and one of the most vital of them will be the development of advanced, accessible and reliable technology.

Over the last decade, using computers, cell phones and all-encompassing handheld devices has gone from optional to almost mandatory. Many jobs require knowledge of how to operate a computer, schools teach computer literacy courses, and to roam about without a cell phone is considered almost Precambrian. These days, communication and information are expected to be immediately accessible. Therefore, to be considered as such, a developed country must live up to these standards.

In a speech in Costa Rica in May, Norm Judah, the chief technology officer of the Microsoft Corporation, the world’s leading developer and provider of computer software, commented on today’s high-tech life.

“One of the biggest changes with the Internet has been the immediacy of information,” he said. “If you are trying to find information, whether you are looking for it on your computer or on your phone, you can get it. We have practically done away with the need to go to people to get information. You don’t even have to go to a library to get a reference book. Almost everything is available online.”

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Electric Cars Of Costa Rica Adding More Vehicles To Its Line Of  Zero Emission VehiclesAs a leading distributor of electric cars and light duty on-road trucks in Costa Rica, Electric Cars of Costa Rica, will now distribute Balgon’s medium and heavy-duty electric vehicles and drive systems, and provide service and parts throughout Costa Rica.

Balqon Corporation, a developer and manufacturer of zero emissions heavy-duty electric vehicles for Class 7 and Class 8 applications, will be making its vehicles available in Costa Rica by way of a dealer agreement.

“Costa Rica has been setting the pace among nations for reducing carbon emissions and has declared the ambitious goal of becoming the first country in the world to be carbon neutral,” said Balwinder Samra, president and CEO of Balqon Corporation. “Electric Cars of Costa Rica has been leading the effort to introduce new zero emissions technologies to Costa Rica and has extensive experience in NEV inner city delivery vehicle markets.”

“In addition to introducing all-electric medium and heavy-duty trucks for transportation of goods and services, we plan to jointly develop both the new and conversion vehicle markets in Costa Rica by providing our proprietary drive system and high-capacity lithium-ion battery packs for use in various vehicle platforms,” said Samra.

James Middlebrooks, president and founder of Electric Cars of Costa Rica, commented: “We are excited to deliver to Costa Rica Balqon’s extensively tested and successfully commercialized zero emissions technology for heavy-duty vehicles. We expect these advanced technologies to be quickly adopted by our existing environmentally-conscious customer base of resorts, distribution warehouses, and inner city distribution companies.”

Costa Rica is ranked first among the Americas and third in the world in terms of the 2010 Environmental Performance Index. In 2007, the Costa Rican government announced plans for Costa Rica to become the first carbon neutral country by 2021.

According to the New Economics Foundation, Costa Rica ranks first in the Happy Planet Index and is the “greenest” country in the world. Also, according to an October 2009 article published by Summa Magazine, Costa Rica is the world’s fourth largest exporter of high technology due to the fact that nearly half of its sales from manufacturing relate to products developed with proprietary technologies.

Electric Cars of Costa Rica represents the third international dealer agreement Balqon has established since the first of the year. In Febuary, Balqon signed Autoelevadores Yale, a leading distributor of material handling equipment and electric vehicles in Argentina. In March, Balqon signed Industrias IVOR, a distributor of trucks, firefighting trucks and equipment, refuse trucks, and heavy machinery for material handling products in Colombia.

Costa Rica Recovers All Jobs Lost During Crisis

Scott Oliver – June 2010 — We Love Costa Rica

In examining the number of workers who have health insurance with the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social (Costa Rica’s Social Security Fund) 57,000 more workers have been employed between September 2009 and April 2010 with private sector showing the strongest improvement, almost 8,000 jobs were lost during the same period in the previous year.

Jobs in Costa Rica – Back on track

This data includes the private sector, public sector, households with domestic servants and the self-employed who insure themselves with the CAJA

Costa Rica’s Recovery Underway – Only construction remains slow.

All sectors have shown improvements in the number of jobs created, however the construction sector remains very quiet or ‘muy tranquilo.’.

Our thanks to our friends at La Nación – Costa Rica’s largest Spanish circulation newspaper – for their permission summarize their article and use their charts.

26.000 New Jobs Created In Costa Rica In First Quarter Of 2010

Inside Costa Rica

Some 26,000 new jobs were created during the first three months of the year according to figures released by the Banco Central (Central Bank), based on the number of workers signed up with the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social (Social Security).

According to the statistics, employment grew 1.4% in January, 2% in February and 3% in March.

The numbers, says Arnoldo André, of the Cámara de Comercio, are a result of increasing confidence by employers who is predicting thousands of more jobs being created in the coming months.

The Central Bank noted that the majority of the new jobs created were in the services industry.

Job growth, though not as high as in services,  also occurred in the agriculture, construction and manufacturing sector.

Regional Trade With EU Opens

By Adam Williams
Tico Times Staff | awilliams@ticotimes.net

Central America and the European Union (EU) are officially free-trade partners. On Tuesday, the six countries of Central America and the 27-member EU bloc signed a free-trade and cooperation agreement in Madrid, Spain that will slash tariffs on key items such as bananas, milk, automobiles, textiles, rice and sugar.

In Agreement: European and Central American leaders signed an historic agreement between their two trade blocs that left both sides feeling optimistic.

JuanJo Martin | EFE

If the agreement is ratified by Costa Rica’s Legislative Assembly, it will be the country’s eighth free-trade deal, with number nine – the agreement with China – also awaiting the legislature’s approval.

“This is one of the first achievements of this government,” said Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla via video conference from Madrid on Tuesday. “ Costa Rica now has access to the biggest markets in the world, including Europe, the U.S. and China.”

The final round of negotiations in Madrid centered on setting satisfactory trading quantities for sugar, cheese, powdered milk, textiles, beef and bananas, as well as assuring the geographic origin of specific products. During the previous round of talks in Guatemala during the first week of May, disagreements over quotas for these products stalled negotiations. The talks began in mid-2007.

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