Costa Rica Launches Healthcare Development Plan

From the OPP Feb 2010

The Costa Rican government is hoping to team up with developers to build residential health care centres for foreign retirees.

The Retirement ‘Cluster’ project, announced last week, aims to offer wealthy US pensioners a variety of medical services including nursing and research, as well as recreational facilities, as a cheaper alternative to medical provision in their own country.

Retirement communities create more than “two to three times” the revenue of the tourism or real estate sectors on their own, minister for competitiveness George Woodbridge told AFP. If the cluster developments were to attract 10,000 retirees, they could create 40,000 jobs and generate $340 million annually in foreign exchange, he said.

Costa Rica last year attracted 30,000 medical tourists, who each spent an average of $6,000 each in the country. This number is expected to rise as “medical costs continue to grow in America,” said Woodbridge.

Medical tourism from the US is likely to grow at a sustainable rate of 35% a year to reach 1.6 million patients by 2012, according to Deloitte’s 2009 report on the topic, which also names Costa Rica as one of the top ten most popular destinations for medical tourism.

Source: OPP Feb 2010, to read the article in full click here

Vote and give someone a FREE trip to Costa Rica

Some months back I mentioned a competition from Nomadic Matt and Gap Adventures offering a free trip to Costa Rica.

Entrants had to create a blog post or a youtube video telling why they deserved the trip.

The 15 finalists have been selected and you can vote and give someone a Free trip to Costa Rica.

T he entries are diverse covering everything from Avatars to monkeys to poetry and Skinny Dipping with Fire Coral.

Why not vote here and make someones day!

Remember, whilst you are too late to enter this competition yourself, if you want the very best rates and a totally personalised trip to Costa Rica arranged for you, check out our special deals with Marina Vilatoro

Webinar last night

We had a great webinar last night to launch the new project close to Jaco - Nature Walk.

Thank you to all who attended and I hope that you found it useful.

The question we were asked again and again is how we could make such a tremendously lucrative offer for the first 6ha of road front lots and Tim Alexander from PRG Global Realty explained the offer really well.

If you would like listen to a copy of the webinar, just send an e mail to info@costaricainvest.ie and we will send you a link to download the webinar and you can listen at your own convenience.

But the offer only applies to the first 6ha of road front lots. Thereafter all other lots are priced at full price and will not pay a 10% pa dividend yield.

Just why do peolpe live longer in Costa Rica?

Shape Magazine reports on the research of Dan Buettner in a recent article that the 6 reasons people live longer in Costa Rica are:

1. They laugh out loud and this laughter lowers the risk of coronary disease.

2. They make exercise a "no-brainer". Long walks and other low intensity exercises are interwoven into the daily routine.

3. They use smart eating strategies, focusing on the food, eating more slowly, consuming less and enjoying flavors and textures more.

4. They grab their nutcrackers - eating nuts regularly and lowering the risk of hear disease.

5. They are choosy with their circle of friends and this reinforces their lifestyle

6. They live with intention: In Costa Rica it's called plan de vida.

To read the full article in Shape Magazine click here

Nature Walk Costa Rica - Launch Webinar

Close to Jaco with seaviews

Fully serviced lots from 1,000m2 and upwards.

With the added benefit of teak growing on your lot.

Pre-formation launch offer

• 10% pa yield
• Lots at 50% discount to retail pricing
• Offer limited to 6ha of roadfront lots

Launch Webinar Thursday the 18th of February 2010

Nature Walk Turribares, Costa Rica

Join us for a Webinar on February 18 Space is limited. Reserve your Webinar seat now at: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/427983674 James Cahill, Costa Rica Invest, will introduce an opportunity to invest in Nature Walk, Turribares, Costa Rica. This early opportunity is suitable for investors - giving a guaranteed yield, reduction on retail pricing entry point and it comes with the added benefit of 12 year old teak. The opportunity is also suitable for those with a medium term plan of having a home in Costa Rica. The developer has apportioned just 6 ha to the pre-formation lot opportunity, so you will need to be ready to purchase..... Title: Nature Walk Turribares, Costa Rica Date: Thursday, February 18, 2010 Time: 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM EST After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar. System Requirements PC-based attendees Required: Windows® 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, 2003 Server, Vista Macintosh®-based attendees Required: Mac OS® X 10.4 (Tiger®) or newer

Costa Rica - the 2 minute tour

Costa Rica elects New President

A landslide victory for Laura Chinchilla is on the cards as she holds a 22 per cent lead over her closest rival, with the majority of votes from Sunday's election counted. Her 47 percent share of the vote was well beyond the 40 percent needed to avoid a run-off.

Laura will be Costa Rica's first woman president and is a protege of current president Oscar Arias.

Her campaign was based on a continuance of the free market policies in Central America's most stable nation and she has promised to pursue the same economic policies that recently brought the country into a trade pact with the U.S. and opened commerce with China.

Trees Grow Faster in Response to Climate Change

A recent study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science has shown that trees in the Eastern USA are growing faster than they have in the past 225 years.

For 20 years forest ecologist Geoffrey Parker has tracked the growth of 55 stands of mixed hardwood forest plots in Maryland. His study shows that forest is growing an additional 2 tons per acre annually. That is the equivalent of a tree with a diameter of 2 feet sprouting up over a year.

This growth rate is much faster than expected and small changes in their growth rate can have significant ramifications in weather patterns, nutrient cycles, climate change and biodiversity. Exactly how these systems will be affected remains to be studied.

Why the trees are growing faster is yet to be proven but the theories currently being investigated are increased temperature, a longer growing season and increased levels of atmospheric CO2.

During the past 22 years CO2 levels at SERC have risen 12%, the mean temperature has increased by nearly three-tenths of a degree and the growing season has lengthened by 7.8 days. The trees now have more CO2 and an extra week to put on weight. Parker suggests that a combination of these three factors has caused the forest's accelerated biomass gain.

The potentially good news is that faster growing trees will remove more CO2 from the atmosphere which will in turn help combat climate change.

You can read more about this story and research in Science Daily

New Autopista Del Sol Open

The new Autopista Del Sol highway from San Jose to Caldera openeed on the 27th of January.

Over 30 years from the date of the original plans, this highway, at 77km long, promises to halve the journey time from San Jose to the Central Pacific Port of Caldera, knocking between 45 minutes and one hour off the original journey time.

Not only will the opening of this highway be of great convenience to travelers but it promises to reduce carbon emissions from cars journeying the route by shortening the journey time making petrol and deisel use more efficient. Another step on the route to Costa Rica's carbon neutrality.

The route has a number of tolls which are levied by the highway operator.