Quick Links: -  Growing Direct Investment -  Exports Increased -  No to pesticides -  Latin American, East Asian foreign ministers begin talks in Philippines -  Texas Rotary Club Donates New Ambulance -  FAO Attempts To Alleviate Nicaraguan Coffee Crisis -  Brazil and India To Boost South-South Trade -  China, Venezuela sign pact on railway rehabilitation -  Rainstorms kill 60, injures thousands in Brazil

Pavarotti in Costa Rica. The Italian tenor arrived yesterday for his concert tomorrow night at the National Stadium.

The event is being sponsored by Credomatic which selling tickets from $10 to $1.200 each. Pavarotti was quoted as saying "that the friendship between Costa Rica an Italy for the last 140 years in one the major reason he his giving a concert here."

Growing Direct Investment
Costa Rica has high expectations to attract direct foreign investment this year, as a result of the recovery of world economy, the increase in revenues of corporations, and the negotiation of the Free Trade Agreement with the U.S. (CAFTA).

Those conditions combine to attract an expected $556 million in direct investment in 2004, according to the Costa Rican Coalition for Development Initiatives (CINDE in Spanish).

However, that figure -which was included in the Central Bank's monetary program for this year- is likely to fall short, according to CINDE director general Edna Camacho.

For starters, Boston Scientific - which operates in the medical supplies field and whose annual sales surpass $3 billion - announced a first $1.3 million investment in a plant that will operate in the Global Park Free Zone, in Heredia.

Thus Costa Rica became the second country, after Ireland, in receiving direct investment from Boston Scientific, which had earlier been confined to the U.S.

 

Exports Increased
The exports of Costa Rica increased 16 percent last year, as compared to those in 2002.

The Central Bank disclosed that sales abroad reached $6,093 million, while imports amounted to $7,620 million, 6 percent more than in 2002.

The total exports were greatly influenced by the firms operating in free zones, mainly Intel, whose exports increased by 50 percent. In addition, several agricultural goods also attained better prices and larger export volumes.

 

No to pesticides
The melon harvest began Dec. 8 on the Entebe farm in Nandayure, on Costa Rica’s northern Pacific coast. Entebe stopped spraying methyl bromide on its crops seven years ago, because of the negative effects of the pesticide on human health and the ozone.

Entebe, however, is one of the few farms that does not use the pesticide on its lush, green fields. Throughout many of the melon farms in Costa Rica and the rest of Central America, workers — and eventually consumers — continue to be exposed to the harmful effects of methyl bromide due its widespread use.

This situation is about to change. Melon producers in Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Honduras are working with their governments on agreements to phase out the use of methyl bromide by 2015. In exchange, the governments in these nations will receive resources from the Montreal Protocol Multilateral Fund, which is linked to reversing ozone depletion, as part of the process of eliminating the use of this pesticide worldwide.

“This fund is maintained by developed countries and in each country the project to eradicate the use of methyl bromide has different characteristics,” said Alfonso Liao, director of the Ozone Commission in Costa Rica’s Energy Ministry.

 

Latin American, East Asian foreign ministers begin talks in Philippines
Foreign ministers from Latin America and East Asia have opened two days of talks in the Philippines Friday with a call to boost cooperation against terrorism and other of security threats.

Colombian Foreign Minister Carolina Barco, who is the co-chairperson of the Forum for East Asian-Latin American Cooperation (FEALAC), said the Americas had identified "a series of new threats to security."

These, she said, included terrorism, drug trafficking and arms-dealing on top of natural disasters, poverty and pandemics that required "decisive action" and on larger cooperation across the hemisphere, she said.

"They require international cooperation, shared responsibility and solidarity to block their disastrous effects on our nations and on our fellow citizens," Barco said at the opening of the plenary talks in Manila ahead of a retreat in the resort city of Tagaytay south of the capital.

"They demand urgent and frank discussion, since the dangers which the Americas have identified are not alien to Asian, or indeed anywhere n ithe world."

She said "security and stability" should be among the highest priorities of the dialogue.

"The forum offers an ideal opportunity to arrange continuous exchanges of point of view on these matters and many more, all of which affect the lives of our countries and our regions," Barco said.

Latin America and East Asia should promote cooperation in all fronts, she said.

The FEALAC forum was conceived by Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong and Chilean leader Eduardo Frei in 1998. Chile hosted its first ministerial meeting in 2001.

On the Asian side the forum groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam along with Australia, China, Japan, South Korea (news - web sites), and New Zealand.

The Latin American countries are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador (news - web sites), Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Guatemala and Nicaragua are to join the group at the Manila meeting.

 

Texas Rotary Club Donates New Ambulance
With a little help from donations and a lot of tender loving care, some East Texans are coming to the aid of people thousands of miles away.

Costa Rica has a significant shortage in ambulances, so the Rotary Club in Longview, Texas, set out to change that.

Three years ago, the club bought an old ambulance from the city and since then, they've worked to fix it up. Now, the ambulance will be given to the Red Cross in Costa Rica.

 

FAO Attempts To Alleviate Nicaraguan Coffee Crisis
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has pledged to help the Nicaraguan government provide aid to over 3,000 of Nicaragua's struggling small-scale coffee producers.

The farmers have experienced a financial crisis as world coffee prices have dropped well below production costs, leading to reduced income, unemployment, and food security concerns for thousands of families in the agricultural sector.

Small-scale farmers such as those in Nicaragua have been particularly affected by the coffee crises as production rigidities and price volatility make it difficult for them to arrive at optimal production strategies.

The FAO's Permanent Representative to Nicaragua, Loy Van Crowder, commented on 20 January when the announcement of the FAO programme was made that as "coffee cultivation in Nicaragua accounts for almost a third of agricultural employment, the consequences of this crisis are devastating for a country where external debt is ten times larger than the total value of export earnings".

The crisis has led the FAO and the Nicaraguan government to highlight the need for agricultural diversification and to re-evaluate the dependency of the country on coffee exports.

Part of the FAO's assistance will involve cooperation with Nicaraguan authorities in the design of an income-generating programme that encourages production of more competitive coffee varieties. Immediate assistance is designed to prevent food shortages with the distribution of 110,000 kilos of black bean seeds.

Some of the beans may also be cultivated for sale locally, a step towards desired agricultural diversification.
 

 

Agenda Nacional  de la Niñez Casa Alianza