Equipo ViaParaguay
Two Taiwanese companies expressed interest in investing in Paraguay, according to reports on August 19 and 20, 2026. Nothing has been signed: these are visits, site evaluations, and ongoing conversations, not contracts or confirmed investments. One wants to buy Paraguayan soybeans again after nearly a decade without doing so; the other, a memory chipmaker, is touring land in eastern Paraguay for a possible plant.
TaiSugar Wants to Buy Paraguayan Soybeans Again
Taiwan Sugar Corporation (TaiSugar) is a Taiwanese state-owned company founded in 1946, linked to Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs. It started as a sugar producer and later diversified into livestock and biotechnology; today it also produces non-GMO soybeans. Its interest in Paraguay is specific: buying soybeans.
The reason lies in the animal feed chain. Taiwan consumes roughly 900,000 metric tons of pork a year and imports about 100,000 tons annually to cover the gap. Soybeans are a key input for pig feed, and last year Taiwan cut its pork tariff to zero, opening an additional channel of trade with countries that supply that input.
A Restart, Not a New Business
Paraguay currently sells no soybeans to Taiwan. The trade flow was cut roughly a decade ago, when Argentina reopened its market after tax changes and Taiwan shifted its purchases to Brazil and the United States. What's now under discussion is restarting it: the target circulating in the talks is reaching 500,000 metric tons a year, between 15% and 20% of what Taiwan imports in soybeans.
Paraguay has the scale to back that ambition. It's the world's third-largest soybean exporter, behind Brazil and the United States, and the sixth-largest producer, according to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). In July 2026, Taiwan's Foreign Minister Lin Chia-Lung was explicit about the preference: "I firmly support Taiwan buying more soybeans from Paraguay and not from Brazil," he said, as reported by ABC Color.
What Paraguay Already Sells Taiwan
While soybeans remain aspirational, real bilateral trade is growing on another front. Paraguayan exports to Taiwan totaled USD 342 million in 2025, up 50% year-on-year, made up almost entirely of meat: USD 271 million in beef and USD 49.6 million in pork. The projection for the close of 2026 is USD 400 million. Soybeans, for now, aren't part of that figure.
ADATA Is Weighing a Plant in Alto Paraná
The second company is ADATA Technology, a Taiwanese manufacturer of DRAM memory modules, solid-state drives (SSDs), and memory cards. It's the world's second-largest brand-name manufacturer of DRAM and SSDs, and it already operates in Brazil. It's now evaluating a plant in Minga Guazú, a city in the department of Alto Paraná, in eastern Paraguay along the border with Brazil. The company is touring possible sites in the area.
From that plant, ADATA would serve markets in Latin America, the United States, and Canada, operating under Paraguay's maquila regime — the scheme for companies that import inputs, assemble or manufacture in the country, and re-export the result. A company vice president surnamed Masselli summed up the logic: "Our idea is to set up a factory in Paraguay to serve the entire Latin American market."
The regime currently in force is Law 7547/2025, regulated by Decree 5714, which replaced the earlier Law 1064/1997 as of September 8, 2025. It sets a single 1% tax on national value added or on the export invoice, with exemption from VAT, corporate income tax (IRE), dividend tax (IDU), and non-resident income tax (INR) for maquila activities.
The Benchmark on the Ground: Master Bus
Minga Guazú isn't new territory for Taiwanese investment. It's home to the Taiwan-Paraguay Technology Park, opened on February 18, 2025. Inside that park, another Taiwanese company, Master Bus, has a confirmed USD 30 million investment to manufacture electric buses, with between 2,000 and 2,500 direct jobs projected; it already shipped its first units in December 2024.
That difference matters. Master Bus is a dollar figure, a timeline, and a factory that has already produced. ADATA, for now, is a visit, a tour of land, and a sentence from a vice president. No source confirms that ADATA's eventual plant would sit inside that same technology park — only that the company is looking at Minga Guazú.
Why Alto Paraná, and Why Now
The area's structural draw is energy: Itaipú, the binational hydroelectric dam between Paraguay and Brazil and one of the largest in the world, supplies cheap, clean power to industries nearby. Paraguay generates virtually 100% of its electricity from hydroelectric plants, unusual even among countries with a clean power mix.
The region is also a trade hub. A few kilometers from Minga Guazú lies Ciudad del Este, the commercial capital of the Triple Border shared by Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina, and the corridor linking that area to Pacific and Atlantic ports is part of the Bioceanic Corridor project Paraguay is promoting as a regional logistics platform.
A Diplomatic Relationship Nearing 70 Years
Paraguay is the only South American country that maintains diplomatic relations with Taiwan instead of the People's Republic of China, a relationship dating back to 1957. It's one of roughly 11 or 12 diplomatic allies Taiwan has left in the world — the count varies depending on whether the Vatican is included — making Paraguay an unusual partner within South America and a counterpart with real weight for Taipei.
The meeting where these interests were raised included Marco Riquelme, Paraguay's Minister of Industry and Commerce (MIC); Eduardo Gustale, deputy minister at Rediex, Paraguay's export and investment promotion agency; and Iván Lee, Taiwan's ambassador to Paraguay.
What to Watch From Here
Neither company has published an investment amount or a timeline: there's no figure yet for ADATA or TaiSugar to evaluate. What is clear is a direction: Taiwan wants to diversify its soybean suppliers away from Brazil, and at least one Taiwanese tech company is seriously eyeing the combination of cheap energy, the maquila regime, and the border location that Alto Paraná offers. Anyone weighing an import and export operation in Paraguay, or comparing this move to another recent case of the country as an agricultural exporter — Paraguay's chia exports, which brought in USD 200 million in 2025 — will recognize the same pattern: Asian markets reopening the door to Paraguayan suppliers. The relationship with Taiwan also includes technology cooperation, such as the Yguazú Digital artificial intelligence hub the two countries are jointly promoting. For anyone evaluating operating or investing in Paraguay, the ViaParaguay team is available through contact.