2nd Asia-Pacific Open House
Crowne Plaza Corobicí, Salón Chirripó, 2253-0126, ext. 123-126, kdiaz@crecex.com.

Escats in Concert
Pop, Grappa Bar, Lindora Shopping Center.

Pearl Jam vs. U2
Tico rockers cover both bands in an attempt to decide which reigns supreme, 9 p.m. is El Observatorio, Ca. 23 between Avs. Central and 1, 2223-0725.

The colón made history yesterday, but few Ticos are cheering as the national currency hit a historic low against the U.S. dollar, trading on the money market at an average ¢543.41 per dollar, according to Central Bank figures.

On Monday, the currency was trading at ¢528.84, a ¢14.57 difference from Tuesday´s mark and a 2.8 percent drop in a single day. The colón traded at ¢522.52 last Tuesday, or 4 percent stronger than this week.

For the past month, the colón had been floating at an average ¢520 per dollar.

The Central Bank intervened at the end of May the last time the colón plummted on MONEX, the money market in which banks trade currency.

At that time, banks bought colones at a rate of ¢527.82 per dollar and sold the national currency for ¢520.63 per greenback.

To prop up its ailing currency, the Central Bank dumped around $600 million in reserves from May to early June, flooding the market with dollars and calming demand.

Brokerage firm Aldesa reported that the Central Bank's reserves dropped by another $82 million over the past week.

Central Bank President Francisco de Paula Gutiérrez said a good indication the institution has intervened in the market is a large volume of trades on MONEX.

He defected a question on whether the bank had intervened recently.

“The bank has said that it reserves the right to intervene when it considers it necessary,” Gutiérrez said.

“The bank does not try to modify the trends of the exchange rate with its exchange policy,” he added. “But it also does not want there to be big episodes of volatility (on MONEX), because that causes a lot of noise in the system.”

By Nick Wilkinson
Tico Times Staff | nwilkinson@ticotimes.net

The nation's Constitutional Court (Sala IV) ordered the Health Ministry to grant permits to homeopaths and naturopaths to operate as doctors.

According to dictionary.com, naturopathy is a system or method of treating disease that employs no surgery or synthetic drugs but uses special diets, herbs, vitamins and massage to assist the natural healing processes. Naturopathy is sometimes referred to as Chinese or Indian medicine.

Homeopathy is the method of treating disease by drugs, given in minute doses, that produces symptoms similar to those of the disease in a healthy person, dictionary.com states.

Previously, the Health Ministry did not grant permits to these entities to operate legally as medical doctors, although many of them still ran clinics or pharmacies offering their services. The court's July 4 ruling struck down that prior policy and the Health Ministry has already begun complying with the order.

Eduardo Quirós, one of the naturopaths who filed the original injunction against the Health Ministry, said the decision covers only doctors who are members of the Costa Rican Biologists Association.

“It's not just for anyone calling themselves a homeopath or naturopath,” he said. “It's only for those who have graduated from an accredited institution and are members of the ssociation.”

Citing the Costa Rican government's declining debt burden, Standard & Poor's Ratings Services (S&P), one of the big three credit rating agencies, raised its outlook on Costa Rican government debt to positive from stable, according to S&P.

Credit ratings measure the risk of default of particular debt issuers, in this case the Costa Rican government. Other thing being equal, the lower the risk an issuer will default on its debt obligations, the lower the interest rate it will need to pay to borrow from markets.

A positive outlook implies that economic conditions in the country are considered to be improving.

S&P affirmed its BB/B foreign currency and BB+/B local currency sovereign credit ratings for Costa Rica. The ratings agency affirmed the BB+ long-term debt rating on Costa Rica's foreign currency senior unsecured debt reflecting both default and recovery prospects. These ratings imply Costa Rican debt is “speculative/somewhat speculative” and that an investment in Costa Rican debt is among the safest investments in debt that is investment-grade.

According to S&P, buoyant tax revenues and continued good GDP growth have contributed to a decline in gross general government debt to an expected 32 percent of GDP at the end of 2008, compared with 41 percent in 2006.

S&P also noted that the ongoing improvement in Costa Rica's fiscal and debt profile, combined with more exchange rate flexibility and a more effective monetary policy, could reduce Costa Rica's vulnerability to sudden external shocks, potentially improving creditworthiness.