Paraguay’s Sustainable Industry Demands Urgent Central Bank Action Over the Dollar Fall

PARAGUAY · ECONOMY

Paraguay’s sustainable-industry chamber has demanded “real, concrete and urgent” action from the central bank over the dollar fall. The Cámara de Industrias Sustentables del Paraguay says the strong guaraní is destroying competitiveness and putting jobs at risk.

What Cispy demanded from the central bank

The Cámara de Industrias Sustentables del Paraguay, known as Cispy, published its statement on Thursday 27 August 2026. It is the sharpest escalation yet in a campaign the chamber has pressed all year.

“The national industry can no longer keep bearing the strong appreciation of the guaraní and the sustained dollar fall,” the statement opens. It demands that the Banco Central del Paraguay, the central bank, act as an economic agent rather than a spectator.

The chamber is blunt about the damage already done. It says the exchange rate is destroying competitiveness, cutting margins and putting investment and employment at risk.

The statement stresses that the problem reaches far beyond its own membership. It names exporters, goods gatherers, transporters and thousands of grassroots recyclers as fellow victims of the dollar fall.

Who Cispy is and why it speaks up

Cispy was founded in late 2020 by recycling and circular-economy companies. Founding members include Brassur in metals, Coresa in plastics, Fpvsa in glass and Yaguarete Reciclaje in paper and cardboard.

Its president, Carlos Mangabeira, has tracked the guaraní’s rise month by month. In December 2025 he warned that the local currency had gained close to 20 percent since June of that year.

His worry then was credit sales, which are common in Paraguayan industry. When a shipment is paid for 60 or 90 days later, a cheaper dollar means fewer guaraníes than the exporter budgeted.

Mangabeira also put a social figure on the squeeze. More than 25,000 families linked to recycling receive less for their materials when export prices lose competitiveness.

A seven-year low for the dollar

The numbers behind the dollar fall explain the urgency. The US currency traded below 6,000 guaraníes in Asunción’s retail market on 27 August, at 5,860 to buy and 5,960 to sell.

Official rates have been setting seven-year lows all month. On 3 August the central bank’s closing rate of 5,961.64 guaraníes per dollar was the third lowest in seven years.

Measured from the start of 2026, the guaraní had gained 10.48 percent by early August. The year opened at 6,227.60 guaraníes per dollar, according to the central bank.

Nor is this a new complaint dressed up as one. Cispy issued a similar warning on 30 April 2026, when it said the guaraní had gained 25 percent in a year.

Back then the chamber called the guaraní one of the world’s most appreciated currencies of the previous year. Few exporters dispute the description, even if they dislike the fact.

Landlocked geography makes the squeeze worse

The chamber’s statement adds a second grievance, the high cost of international freight. Paraguay has no coastline, so every export already carries a structural logistics penalty.

“The landlocked condition of Paraguay already represents a structural logistics disadvantage for our exports,” the statement says. Costlier transport and the exchange-rate loss now deepen that handicap together.

Most Paraguayan exports leave by barge down the Paraguay and Paraná rivers to the Atlantic. Every extra dollar of freight comes straight out of a margin the currency move has already cut.

The core accounting problem is simple. Companies earn in dollars but pay wages, energy and inputs in guaraníes.

Each step of the dollar fall shrinks income while costs stay put. That mismatch is why the chamber says margins are collapsing across the productive sector.

What the central bank has done so far

The Banco Central del Paraguay is not inactive, but industry wants more. The bank sold record dollar volumes in 2024 and 2025, yet it has not bought dollars since October 2025.

The exporters’ chamber, Capex, made a parallel appeal on 25 August. It asked the central bank for predictability and symmetrical rules, as we reported on 26 August.

The monetary authority’s own survey of economic agents expects little relief. The median forecast puts the exchange rate at 6,150 guaraníes per dollar at the end of 2026.

Central-bank officials have long argued that they smooth swings rather than set the level. That doctrine is exactly what the industrial chambers now challenge.

Interest-rate policy is moving the other way. The central bank cut its policy rate to 5.75 percent in January 2026, and analysts expect further cuts this year.

Why this matters for foreigners and investors

For expatriates and foreign investors, a strong guaraní cuts both ways. Dollar income buys less inside Paraguay, while dollar savings buy more local assets and labour.

The country sells itself to manufacturers on cheap renewable power from the Itaipú dam and low taxes. A currency that rises 10 percent in eight months quietly erodes that cost advantage.

Analysts at BMI, a Fitch Solutions company, expect the guaraní to stay firm through 2026. They note it appreciated roughly 17 percent against the dollar in 2025 alone.

The political pressure on the bank now comes from two directions at once. Exporters and sustainable industry both want it back in the market, and both are using the word urgent.

What to watch from here

The first test is whether the central bank resumes dollar purchases in the open market. Its last buying intervention dates to October 2025, and any return would mark a clear policy shift.

The second test is the year-end rate. A close near 6,150 guaraníes per dollar would hand exporters a second straight year of currency losses.

The third is jobs. Cispy’s statement puts employment at the centre of its argument, and layoffs in recycling or manufacturing would sharpen the political fight.

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