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L.F. Franco: Address at World Summit 2014
Written by Dr. Luis Federico Franco Gómez, President of Paraguay (2012-13)
Sunday, August 10, 2014
Excerpts of Address to World Summit 2014, Seoul, Korea, August 9-13, 2014
The Paraguayan Chaco is a vast territory that occupies 62 percent of the land surface of the country, but unfortunately, the Chaco has barely 2 percent of the population of Paraguay.
Here I want to share with you reflections about Rev. Moon, who saw in Paraguay, and in the Chaco in particular, a brilliant opportunity to generate development. Rev. Moon said that the best way to end poverty is to fight it where it is produced, in the most distant places, the most desolate places, in this case, in the Paraguayan Chaco. And Rev. Moon understood that the Paraguayan Chaco was an ideal territory to invest in to increase the productivity of our country through the Paraguay and Parana Rivers.
We have petroleum in the Paraguayan Chaco, and we have the most fertile land in the region. One parcel of land can produce three harvests a year in the Chaco zone. President Sanguinetti [former president of Uruguay] should be aware that many Uruguayans, Argentinians and Brazilians went to invest in Paraguay because of its great productivity of cattle. Paraguay has the fourth largest cattle production in the world. I believe that this makes Paraguay, with its small land surface, an attractive country.
In this Paraguayan Chaco zone, where Puerto Leda and Puerto Victoria are present, Rev. Moon has approximately 700 to 800 thousand hectares of property. This is barely the beginning, the prelude to a series of investments that can be carried forward.