Investing and building in Paraguay - The Basics

43POSTS

16 years ago

Hi everyone,
Over the last couple of months I have seen a lot of foreigners-expats both in this forum and others ask questions about investing in Paraguay. I am often unable to answer questions asked. Personally I have read things that send up a lot of red flags: people unaware of corruption in Paraguay, lack of customer service, or people too open about how much money they want to spend. Paraguay is great but it is not Costa Rica.

I thought it might be helpful for people to write about Do´s and Don´ts of investing in Paraguay. It would be great if people were willing to chime in with their experiences. I do not mean this to be a negative thing at all so please talk about the positives of investing in Paraguay as well as the things to look out for!

saludos,
Natalia

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Mike.M Active member

61POSTS

16 years ago

Why leave the US? Because government policy is destroying commerce. Taxes are destroying wealth. The Patriot Act has suspended our most important traditional rights.

Where might be better than the US? All of the English speaking countries in the New World (except Canada) are worth considering if they have preserved a legal system based on Common Law. Among the Spanish speaking Latin American countries, in order of preference are Paraguay, Peru, Columbia, Panama, Costa Rica, and there are other good possibilities that might require some thought, Uruguay. It is too bad that the Spanish speaking countries don't have a legal system based on the English Common Law.

Why Paraguay? Off the top of my head:
It is one of the cheapest countries in the world.
Land is cheap
Government is relatively small.

According to www.heritage.org, on a scale of 0 to 100, where 100 is most free Paraguay gets the first score and the US is the second score:
Government Size 90.4 72
Fiscal Freedom 96.6 67.5
Trade Freedom 83.2 86.8
Monetary Freedom74.0 74.0
Property Rights 30.0 44.0

It looks to me like Paraguay is a better choice than the US if one values freedom. And it's cheaper.

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