PARAGUAY: OPEN FOR BUSINESS

Are you interested in gambling in Paraguayan casinos? Here’s an article about how you can have your chance to win, at the Yacht Club, Golf and Casino Hotel in Lambare just outside Asuncion, together with others in the German lakeside resort town of San Bernadino and another in Ciudad del Este (Hotel Acuario).

Paraguay is a South American country with rich culture and history, also a favorite getaway for tourists from all over the world including South America itself. Gambling in Paraguay is only legal in the casinos, and they have a few to boast of in the major cities that are of interest as tourist destinations.

Tourists and locals crowd Paraguay casinos alike, as Paraguayans are passionate about the thrill of gambling. Three of the Paraguay casinos are situated in Asuncion, which is also the capital city, and others are in Ciudad del Este and San Bernardino. One of the most famous of these is the Hotel Resort Casino Yacht and Golf Club Paraguay, situated in Asuncion. It is a hotel, as the name suggests, with 125 rooms and suites, an 18-hole golf course, a tennis court, a spa and fitness center, swimming pool, a disco, five restaurants with international and local cuisine, and two bars.

The casino in The Hotel Resort Casino Yacht and Golf Club Paraguay offers 18 table games with American roulette, baccarat, blackjack, Caribbean stud poker, French roulette, poker, and Punto Banco. Besides the table games, the casino also has 80 slot machines for the entertainment of the guests.

Due to the fact that most casinos are on a hotel’s premises, house rules may differ and with them the opening and closing hours, as well. All Paraguay casinos allow gambling only to those who are 18 years or age and more, and the same applies in the case of consumption of any alcoholic beverages. A valid identification will be required in order to enter a Paraguay casino and without one, you may be denied entry to the same.

If you are a beginner in the gambling world, Paraguay casinos’ friendly personnel conduct gambling lessons periodically for free in order to initiate newcomers to the thrill of the game. In Paraguay, the official language is Spanish; however, English is widely spoken throughout the country and in places that are tourist attractions such as casinos.

It is a pleasure to visit Paraguay whether it is by air, land, or a cruise in any season of the year; the people are friendly, the country charming, and the adventures are endless. Visit Paraguay today and experience for yourself the thrill of gambling in their casinos.

This article is the property of Paraguay Casinos. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Adel_Awwad

Here is a list of the main casinos in Paraguay:

Gran Casino de Itaipu
Avenida 11 de Septiembre 816
Ciudad del Este 7000
Paraguay
Telephone: +(595) 6151 2123

Hotel Resort Casino Yacht and Golf Club Paraguay
Avenida del Yacht Numero 11
Lambare
Asuncion
Asunción 2429
Paraguay
Telephone: +(595) 2190 6043

San Bernardino Country Club & Hotel Acuario
Km 45 y Lago Ypacaraí
San Bernardino
Paraguay
Telephone: +(595) 512 2375

Here’a a recent article by Tom Dyson, reproduced by kind permission of Daily Wealth:

“Yesterday I visited the world’s largest hydroelectric power plant. The name of this plant is Itaipu. It sits on the border between Brazil and Paraguay, on one of the largest rivers in Latin America, the Rio Parana.

A few months ago, I visited the largest coal-fired power plant in America, Plant Scherer. When Scherer operates at full capacity, it produces 3.5 gigawatts of power. A nuclear reactor produces around one gigawatt of power.

Itaipu produces 14 gigawatts of power. In other words, it’s four times the size of America’s largest coal power plant… and 14 times the size of most nukes. Itaipu provides 93% of Paraguay’s power and 25% of Brazil’s power.

I can’t explain in words what a beast this dam is. It stretches four miles across and 65 stories high. The iron and steel used to build it would give you 380 Eiffel Towers. It’s one of the seven modern wonders of the world, alongside the Panama Canal and the Golden Gate Bridge.

According to their joint agreement, Paraguay gets 50% of the electricity from the dam. Brazil gets 50%. But Paraguay is a small country. It has a population of 6 million people… versus 200 million in Brazil. So Paraguay only keeps 5% of Itaipu’s power and sells the rest back to Brazil.

This makes Paraguay the largest exporter of hydroelectric power in the world.

Here’s the thing: Paraguay sells its electricity to Brazil at $3 per megawatt-hour. Right now, Brazil can sell the same unit of electricity to its private utilities at $150 per megawatt-hour. There is an electricity crisis in Latin America right now, especially in Chile, and electricity prices are very high. It’s immediately obvious Brazil is not paying Paraguay the right price for its power. And Paraguay is losing billions of dollars.Corrupt politicians set this low price in 1973… under a 50-year contract. The Brazilians bribed the Paraguayan government to sell them power at a rate that’s far too low. Now, there are calls to change this rate, but who knows if that’ll happen…

The thing is, Paraguay doesn’t have to sell its power to Brazil. It could consume the power itself. I think it would be a great business to set up an aluminum or zinc smelter here. These businesses are electricity-intensive. The problem is, Paraguay is a poor country and has absolutely no industry. It’s all agriculture here.

According to the people at Itaipu, the energy the dam creates every day is the equivalent to 433,000 barrels of oil. That’s about half of what Canada’s Athabasca oil sands produce each day. Except it’s renewable, it’s clean, and it takes no energy to produce.

This cheap electricity is one of the reasons I like Paraguay as an investment. But it’s hard to get your money into the country…

Paraguay has no stock market… only a small bond market. So to invest in Paraguay, you’ll have to go there yourself and buy assets from the locals. That’s a good thing. It means everything is cheap.

In Paraguay, for example, you can buy companies for book value… that pay 45% dividends, according to one broker I met. You can buy real estate with 10% rental yields. And cattle farms with 18.5% cash yields.

More to come from Paraguay in my next column…

Good investing,

Tom

P.S. The Three Gorges Dam in China will be the largest hydroelectric dam in the world by volume. It will operate at full capacity by 2011. China hopes it’ll produce 18 gigawatts. That’s bigger than Itaipu.

Our tour guide wasn’t convinced Three Gorges would be able to produce that much power. “The Yangtze isn’t as powerful as the Parana,” he said. “We’ll see…”

P.P.S. There is talk of a hydro plant twice the size of Three Gorges in Africa, on the Congo River. But it’ll never happen. For a start, only 10% of Africans have access to the grid… What will they do with all that power? And secondly, it will require cooperation from seven different central African countries… and hundreds of billions of dollars in loans.

Originally sourced here

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