RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – According to ex-Minister of Finance Santiago Peña, the country’s development is strongly linked to agribusiness and the best example of this was 2020, when “we experienced the pandemic situation, a total shutdown for a long time, and what saved Paraguay, what allowed the country to continue growing was the livestock agricultural sector.”
“This is one of Paraguayan economy’s great strengths and if we think about the growth it could have in the coming years, a large part of the additional Gross Domestic Product is still going to come from the agribusiness sector,” he added in a television interview.
Peña acknowledged that “it is often argued that Paraguay is a country of primary production, that it is not yet involved in high-value technological development, which may be important for other countries, but in the case of Paraguay I believe that we have to learn to value this great potential and this great competitiveness of the agribusiness sector.”
“We are not only talking about soybeans, about other products where the country has an enormous potential. And not only in the livestock sector, we are not only talking about beef exports. We have an enormous potential in the production of animal protein, derived from pork, chicken. We are still in an early development process and we would love to see high-value agriculture and livestock, the combination of the primary sector with the industrial sector, which is what generates greater added value,” he concluded.
Source: ADN Digital