Hello and welcome to Business Daily on the BBC World Service. I'm Jane Chambers. Today I'm visiting the landlocked country of Paraguay to find out more about its ambitious plans to become the Silicon Valley of South America, a vibrant global hub for technology and innovation.

Paraguay is a country of nearly 7 million people, but despite having a growing

economy, according to the World Bank, in 2022, around one quarter of the population was still

living below the national poverty line. Could this be the idea that changes that?

What the president wants is to transform the country, transfer into a place where the innovation grow

with some ingredient that we have here that is not common in every place.

I'll be talking to government ministers, entrepreneurs and business leaders

who are all determined to grow the number of high-tech companies based here

and put Paraguay on the map.

Latin America, it's not a high-cost region.

So combining those three things, cost, location and talent pool is why we are here.

That's all coming up in Business Daily.

My first stop is a visit to a large plot of land where the government's developing a digital park.

It's a beautiful sunny day.

We're here in the capital of Paraguay, Sancyon,

and we are surrounded by army barracks, green fields, trees, what will happen here?

Well, this will be the place where the innovation will grow.

I'm with someone who's passionate about making the digital park a success.

My name is Gustavo Villata and the Minister of Technology and Communication from Paraguay.

I work closely with the President Santiago Peña.

We have the youngest population. we have a lot of energy green

renewable energy we have lower taxes we have a macro stability an economic stability so what we need is

...