*Paraguay’s central bank (BCP) has released its latest quarterly report, showing that GDP grew by 4.8% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2024, up from growth of 4.3% in the first quarter of 2024. With this result, GDP has grown by 4.6% in the first half of the year, exceeding the BCP’s forecast of 3.8% for GDP growth this year. The BCP highlights strong performances in the second quarter in the services (+6.2% year-on-year), manufacturing (+5.8%), construction (+4.7%), and livestock (+5.4%) sectors, as well as in agriculture to a lesser extent (+1.1%). It notes that the negative result in the energy sector (-8.6%) somewhat offset the favourable result. In terms of spending, the BCP highlights positive results in terms of private consumption (+5.3%), gross fixed capital formation (+8.6%), and government consumption (+10.4%), while net exports recorded a negative result (-1.6%).
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