Last month, the new President of Paraguay, Mario Abdo Benítez, and the then President of Brazil, Michel Temer, signed an agreement to build two international bridges connecting both countries. This announcement is good news, as it will increase the possibilities of integration, facilitate international trade and enable new business opportunities on both sides of the border. Despite the visible differences in the size of their economies, this initiative can bring many important benefits to both countries in terms of income, employment, and quality of life.

Paraguay is one of the economies that, thanks to a solid monetary policy and a responsible tax policy, has been growing most in Latin America at least in the last 15 years (an average of 4.5% per year between 2004 and 2017, according to the World Bank data).

"Paraguay is one of the economies with higher growth in Latin America, at least, in the last 15 years."

Our main work in Paraguay has been to support the efforts of the country to improve and maintain its road network, especially what we call “integration corridors”. These corridors are roads or road networks that connect different regions within a country, or the production centers of a country with its borders and ports. So, we aim at providing Paraguayan farmers and industries with communication routes that enable them to transport their products in an efficient and safe way to other regions of the country, to the border countries or to the rest of the world.

We are funding the building of new roads and the renovation and maintenance of old ones, aiming at facilitating the connection of rural areas with urban centers. Besides, we also support one of the huge potentials of this country: its access to rivers. In that sense, we have already improved the access to Puerto de Pilar, inaugurated some days ago, and our future operations will build access to and improve other ports on the Paraguay river.

In addition to our support to the road network and logistics, we have funded the productive development of small- and medium-scale livestock producers through the Livestock Fund, helping to maintain the outstanding growth of the agricultural industry of Paraguay.

We believe it is also important to take care of Paraguay’s historic heritage through the restoration of the architectural complexes of the Jesuit Missions, the enhancement of the museums of the Missions, as well as of the services offered to tourists visiting these sites. Thus, by boosting tourism, we also boost integration and cultural exchange.

Furthermore, and concerned with the basic needs of the population, one of the last projects approved by the Executive Board of FONPLATA aims at enhancing the safety and reliability of electric power supply in the Metropolitan System and the National Interconnected System of Paraguay in normal conditions, as well as in emergencies, reducing the amount of non-supplied energy and the technical losses in the network.

Notwithstanding, besides the social growth and progress achieved in these years, poverty rates are still high (26.4% of poverty and 4.4% of extreme poverty), being this one of the main current challenges of Paraguay.

For all these reasons, FONPLATA remains committed with the future of Paraguay. We really believe that the country will continue growing and integrating with other nations and the world, and we want to be its allies in the great challenge of overcoming the current poverty rates and improving the quality of life of its people.

Text published in Juan E. Notaro’s monthly column in the Huffington Post.