Costa Rica was ranked 5th in terms of global environmental performance in 2008 in the annual EPI (Environmental Performance Index) compiled by Yale and Columbia Universities but this small Central American Country is on a path of constant improvement and has now been ranked number one by the Happy Planet Index in June 2009. This index measures the happiness of the nation's people in comparison to their ecological footprint and Costa Rica was the clear winner.
Their plans to be carbon neutral as a nation by 2021 will ensure that that they will be hard to shift from this number one spot.
Meanwhile, the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked this emerging economy as the 7th most politically and socially stable country in the world in March of 2009. A good safe place for foreign investment perhaps? IDF magazine (Financial Times Publishing Group) agrees and ranks them as the second most attractive country in Latin America and the Caribbean for Foreign Investment (They were just pipped at the post by Puerto Rico)
The Latin Business Chronicle ranks Costa Rica as the second most globalized nation in Latin America on the basis of six criteria - imports, exports, tourism receipts, foreign direct investment and remittances.
Finally they have just increased its placing in the Global Competitiveness Index by 4 places and now ranks second only to Chile out of all the countries in Central and Southern America. Interestingly, they beat their perhaps better known neighbour Panama by 8 places in the Index.
So Costa Rica is good for the environment and good for business.
An attractive place to retire to? 1% of the population is already North American and Canadian retirees and expatriates and retiring to Costa Rica is a straightforward process.
It is estimated that 100 million baby boomers will retire over the next two decades and some projections estimate that 10% of them will seek to live outside of North America.
With its low cost of living, excellent health care and safe beautiful environment Costa Rica looks likely to attract many of these retirees.
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