MANY visitors to Paraguay never get beyond Ciudad del Este, the second-largest city. Brazilian day-trippers cross the Paraná river on the Friendship Bridge, shop in grungy malls and return laden with cheap electronics, Chinese-made blankets and Armani jeans, some of them genuine. The law limits the bargain-hunters to $300-worth of duty-free goods a month; they, and the border guards, ignore it.
Brazil’s recession has dented this tacky trade. “Normally, you couldn’t pass through here because of the crowds,” sighs a taxi driver on Monseñor Rodríguez, the main thoroughfare. Sales at SAX, the city’s swankiest mall, fell 90% last year. Other sources of export earnings are also suffering; the price of soyabeans has halved since 2012. Only electricity, powered by the massive Itaipu dam near Ciudad del Este and sold to Brazil, is doing well.
And yet this landlocked, sparsely populated country is coping better than many in the region. Its GDP grew by 6.2% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2016. It will expand by around 3% this year and next, forecasts the IMF. That would place it in the top tier among South American economies (see...Continue reading
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