The Minister of Public Works and Communications of Paraguay, Ramón Jiménez Gaona, has announced that 30 national and international firms have shown interest for Paraguay's PPP program.

The first projects included in the program are the expansion and improvement of Paraguay's routes 2 and 7, the modernization of Silvio Pettirossi airport and Paraguay's river waterway, between rivers Apa and Paraná.

The expansion and improvement of Paraguay's routes 2 and 7 will be the first infrastructure project to be carried out as a public-private partnership (PPP) under the country's recently-passed PPP law.

In early April  Mr Jiménez presented the Pre-Feasibility for the project to the Planning Technical Secretariat (SCT). The study was conducted with help of Korean Agency for International Cooperation (KOIKA).

A team composed of government officials from several departments will now review the studies. Before being tendered, the project will have to be declared of public interest by the Government.

Jiménez Gaona commented in March that the Government had prepared a program of priority projects, as required by the new Law on PPPs. Besides the three projects mentioned above, other priority projects include:

• Expansion and improvement of routes 1 and 6
• Ypacaraí - Asunción railway
• Asunción suburbs sewage project
• Lake Ypacaraí area project