Wow - 189 posts, eh? Heh. I've spent a bit of time in Paraguay, but most of it in the poor parts of departamento (their name for province) Concepcion.
I find the people to be very friendly, especially to foreigners (doesn't mean you don't have to watch out for people who take advantage of others). There are so many opportunities there. Their economy is growing and growing - and in fact, Japanese businessmen seem to be doing a lot of importing/exporting there - in 2010-2011 I was looking to do some import business related to slot machines. I missed a giant opportunity there - I'd probably be rich three times over now if I had gone ahead with it. The only reason I didn't is because our supplier in Chile flaked out on us. But one issue we had in that time frame was that the warehouses were all contracted out, primarily by Japanese businessmen. We were going to rent out a house with a little bit of land and build a cheap workshop/warehouse on the property.
But you want to rent a place - put down your deposit and sign the contract y ya esta. You don't pay - you get kicked out. No personal income tax and business income taxes around 10%, or 20% if you take the money out of the country (as of when I was looking into things, I don't think things have changed). Banking can still be a little difficult if you don't have residency, but that is easily solved by creating a corporation and having your lawyer open it for you (which we did) and the account can have both Dollars and Guarani. I managed to wire some money directly to our bank account there with no problems, quite unlike here.
Pizza Hut is there, really good restaurants (and some bad ones too), most things reasonably priced and if you don't like the prices go to Cuidad del Este and buy there. I hear Encarnacion is growing steadily, with a burgeoning middle class, though I haven't visited there yet (one day soon, maybe beginning of next year). At one point I was looking for investors in conjunction with a well-connected real estate guy in Asuncion to go to Encarnacion, buy up a bunch of hectares of land, develop it and provide financing for the new middle class. Couldn't find enough interest from guys I had contacts with at the time.
Not a great amount of night life in Asuncion - some people need that, but I'm not a public party-er so it doesn't affect me, but there is a little bit of night life. Not nearly as much modern cultural stuff, but a lot of Guarani culture mixed in every day life.
Not a good place to be as a poor person, but with even a little bit of money and a good attitude, one can do quite well there, I'm convinced. Cost of living half to two thirds what it is here. At one point I was looking at a 300 sq mtr house (used to be a small school) right out of downtown in a posh neighborhood for about 1000 USD a month, though prices in Asuncion, particularly downtown, have probably gone up quite a bit.
Better service on the whole than here - people want to do business there and understand the idea of keeping customers.
The only reason we don't live there is because my wife used to work as a maid in Asuncion, she comes from a very poor family (literally dirt poor), and the upper class there often treats their own poor worse than the upper class here treats Paraguayans and other poor Mercosur immigrants. Even though she would be returning with money, she still remembers how she was treated. Although, she has recently been realizing how it would be if we were to open a small business there...she's starting to think it may not be so bad these days compared to how things are getting here.
