Paraguay’s Trade Boom Masks A Return To Deficits

Paraguay is trading more with the world than ever, but the direction of the money has quietly flipped. By the end of October 2025, exports reached about $14.18 billion, up 3.3% on a year earlier.

Imports, however, jumped 10% to roughly $14.97 billion, leaving a trade deficit of around $791 million and reversing last year’s surplus. Total foreign trade – exports plus imports – climbed 6.7% to just over $29.15 billion, signalling a very open, very active economy.

Beneath those headline numbers, the structure of what Paraguay sells is changing in ways that will matter for growth and stability.

Primary products – raw soy, corn and other oilseeds – brought in about $3.23 billion, 14.1% less in value than a year ago, even though volumes rose slightly, by around 51,000 tons.

Farmers are shipping more but earning less, a familiar problem in commodity-dependent economies. The healthier story is in higher-value food exports.

Manufactures of agricultural origin, such as processed beef and soy products, grew 10.9% to around $3.79 billion. Beef is the standout: bovine meat exports reached about $1.74 billion, a 24.2% jump in revenue on top of a 4.5% increase in volume.

Paraguay shifts to value-added exports and trade reforms

That is exactly the kind of shift toward value-added production that market-oriented policymakers have long demanded and that tends to bring more stable jobs and tax revenue than simply exporting raw crops.

Electricity exports, a traditional pillar built on the Itaipú and Yacyretá dams, slipped 4.8% to 11,883.9 GWh. That means less easy foreign currency at a time when the country is importing more machinery, equipment and industrial inputs – categories that together now total about $11.85 billion, up 14.6%.

Fuel imports, by contrast, fell roughly 15%, helped by lower international oil prices. Trade patterns show where Paraguay sits in the global economy: more than 60% of its registered exports go to Argentina and Brazil, while China supplies a third of its imports.

At the same time, exports to the United States are rising fast, growing more than 25% this year. For outsiders, this matters because Paraguay is a textbook case of a small, pro-trade country trying to climb the value chain while keeping its external accounts under control.

For Paraguayans, the choice is clear: keep pushing reforms that reward investment and efficiency, or risk letting a noisy politics of easy promises turn today’s busy ports into tomorrow’s vulnerability.

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