Un análisis del comercio entre Paraguay y Singapur 2019-2023

In December 2023, the Mercosur-Singapore Free Trade Agreement was signed. Upon entry into force of the Agreement, Singapore will free tariffs on all goods originating in Mercosur, and the latter will do the same for 25.6% of its tariff lines. Others, whichadd up to 70.2%, will be gradually liberalized over 15 years. Although agriculture has a marginal weight in the economy of the Asian country, manufactures of agricultural origin contribute about 1.3% of its GDP. These products, which process imported raw materials, reached exports worth 3.9 billion Singapore dollars (SGD) in 2019. Importscoincidewith the export specialization of the Mercosur countries. This work is the first in a series that aims to study trade between the Mercosur countries and Singapore. At this initial stage, it seeks to become familiar with the object of study, namely, trade between the parties. In this context, the present work aimed to analyze the trade exchange between Paraguay and Singapore. Specifically, (i) to characterize Paraguay-Singapore trade and (ii) to identify the products that are part of the Paraguay-Singapore trade exchange. Thiswas an exploratory research. Three indicators were used, trade, export and import, which were studied using proportions and percentages, and variation rate. The trade data were from the Foreign Trade System of the Central Bank of Paraguay and the WITS database of the World Bank. As a result, the work characterized trade between the two countries, identified and described the main goods exchanged between 2019 and 2023, called the reference period. It was concluded that trade, although of low value, reflects Paraguay's comparative advantage as an exporter of primary agro-food goods and an importer of manufactured goods and petroleum derivatives.