Sectors
Port logistics: the waterway is the country's infrastructure
A country with no sea coast that exports grain and beef and imports all of its fuel has only one possible artery, and it is the river. Understanding the Paraguay-Paraná waterway — its draughts, its windows, its tolls and its 34 private ports — is not a logistics detail: it is the difference between a deal that closes and one that stalls.
The market
Paraguay has the world's third-largest river fleet, behind the United States and China, with around 3,200 Paraguayan-flagged vessels. That fleet moves close to 94 % of river trade between Corumbá, in Brazil, and the Río de la Plata, covering more than 3,400 kilometres. Grain leaves by that route, and 90 % of the country's manufactured goods, fuels and industrial inputs come in the same way.
The network rests on 34 private ports specialised by cargo type — dry bulk, liquid bulk, containers, general cargo — and on an ecosystem of shipowners, agencies and terminals. Paraguayan foreign trade grew 12.3 % and is again straining the efficiency of that network; the regional dispute over tolls on the Argentine stretch is now a cost variable any serious operation must model.
What GAMEN does
Operational coordination
Terminal and shipowner selection by cargo and draught, space booking, loading windows, independent inspection and convoy tracking through to destination.
Customs and storage
Clearance, transit and bonded-warehouse regimes, and coordination of storage at licensed terminals, producing the documentation the bank will later require to pay.
Infrastructure projects
Structuring investments in terminals, berths or storage capacity: legal framing, local partners, permits and project financing.
What we need to start
The first conversation is shorter and more useful with these details on the table.
- Cargo type, annual volume and seasonality.
- Origin and destination, and real schedule flexibility against low-water periods.
- For infrastructure projects: committed capital and expected return horizon.
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