From: Bloomberg
Despite promising one of the biggest turnaround stories in the southern hemisphere, President Horacio Cartes has more work to do.
By Andrew Martin and Juan Pablo Spinetto
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After centuries of isolation and experiments in tyranny, Paraguay is having its moment. Construction cranes loom over an emerging skyline in the capital city of Asunción, foreign investors are buying up swaths of land to raise livestock or grow crops, and the government has begun to deliver a bit of transparency. “This is an important first step to improve the quality of institutions in Paraguay on a lasting basis,” according to a generally upbeat report issued last month on the country’s progress by the International Monetary Fund. In a region badly hurt by corruption and a commodities bust, Paraguay’s economy is a standout, projected by the World Bank to grow more than 3 percent in 2016, the second-fastest in South America. This makeover has made Cartes a darling of good-government types, academics, and business groups. In introducing Cartes at NYU, President John Sexton described him as “a remarkable man.” “I love the diversity of your business acumen,” Sexton said, “ranging from beverages to tobacco to soccer.”
Diversity is one way to put it. No one mentioned it that morning in New York, but the president was once accused of currency fraud, which caused him to spend four years as a fugitive and then do time in jail before the charges were dropped. He was the focus of a U.S. investigation into potential money laundering (no charges were filed). And the tobacco company Sexton referred to? It’s the favorite of smugglers who flood Brazil with black-market cigarettes.
