Industry Day puts Paraguay’s manufacturing ambitions in focus

As Paraguay prepares to mark Industry Day on September 8, economist Rodrigo Ibarrola is urging attention to the sector’s role in transforming the country’s economy.

Industry, he said, offers Paraguay a way to move beyond the export of raw materials and build more value and technology into its productive structure. When Paraguayan raw materials undergo processing at home, a larger share of the resulting value remains in the country. Exporting them without transformation leaves much of that value creation abroad.

The sector already carries significant weight. Ministry of Industry and Commerce data put industry at 19% of gross domestic product, equivalent to about $9.446 billion. National Statistics Institute figures show 29,771 registered industries employing 353,031 people.

Manufacturing has also gained ground in foreign trade. Exports of agricultural-origin and industrial-origin manufactures totaled $6.311 billion in 2025, an 11% increase from the $5.692 billion recorded in 2024.

Ibarrola said the sector could also help address Paraguay’s high level of informality. Better-paid, higher-quality and more formal jobs are concentrated to a significant extent in industry, while new industrial investment and government promotion policies have supported formal employment. The informality rate fell from about 62% in 2020 to 55% in 2025, according to data cited by the ministry.

He argued that manufacturing still has considerable room to expand and could generate more formal jobs and raise wages. The article ends with a partial quotation from Ibarrola: “A large part of the country’s employment growth still occurs in low-productivity activities.”

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A large part of the country’s employment growth still occurs in low-productivity activities.