MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

China offering to invest and create jobs in Taiwan friendly Paraguay

Jobs, a tempting offer for President Lugo to decide on

A delegation of Chinese private businessmen met this week with Paraguay’s president Fernando Lugo with the purpose of expressing their interest in investing in the country, more precisely in the manufacture of cellular phones, batteries and battery chargers.

The investment would involve 10 million US dollars and could once fully operational create up to a thousand full time jobs, according to businessman Walid Sweid and his Paraguayan counterpart Juan Carlos Sosa.

The idea is to associate with Factory Group SA a manufacturer of DVD disks in Ciudad del Este and take advantage of Paraguay’s abundant and cheap power plus readily accessible manpower.

“The group already has a factory in Brazil but they are interested in Paraguay to supply the rest of Mercosur country members”, said Sosa who added that president Lugo promised full support “through the right channels and government offices”.

Paraguay is one of the few countries in the world which still has full diplomatic relations with Taiwan, and Taipei has been extremely generous with the land-locked South American country to retain that privilege.

However the offer of establishing a factory and creating a thousand direct jobs is also tempting and several Paraguayan groups are lobbying strongly for Beijing.

Paraguay’s Lower Chamber authorized the Industry, Trade and Tourism committee to receive the mainland China delegation of business persons because “we need to analyze trade with China since we have a huge, growing trade deficit with the giant Asian economy”.

“It is well known that foreign affairs are strict competence of the Executive branch, and so is the decision to establish normal relations with Beijing. Nevertheless opening a continental China trade office in Paraguay could be a solution for the irregular trade situation, most of which is done through triangulation”, points out the statement from the Industry and Trade Committee.

The initiative was born following “workshops” between members of the Lower House and Senators with representatives from the Paraguayan-Chinese Cultural, Commercial and Industrial Chamber, confirmed a former Agriculture minister Raúl Torres linked to the soy beans trade and one Paraguay’s main exports.

“Any legal group wishing to contribute to find solutions for the many problems faced by Paraguay, such as the creation of jobs, as for example this Chinese delegation is more than welcome”, said Mr. Torres.