[{"bbox": [108, 146, 1120, 390], "category": "Table", "text": "<table><tr><td>External</td><td>Lack of or low interest of agro-industrial sector in implementing circular economy practices.</td><td>Low</td><td>Medium</td><td>Awareness raising campaigns on the importance and benefits of applying circularity and environmental sustainability will be implemented.</td></tr></table>"}, {"bbox": [119, 392, 280, 416], "category": "Section-header", "text": "Lessons Learnt:"}, {"bbox": [119, 428, 1110, 563], "category": "Text", "text": "The European Union has been supporting Paraguay in improving the competitiveness of the economy with a number of programmes for some years now, achieving several advances and facing some challenges. Among the main lessons learned, in particular from the experience in the projects \"Promotion of Diversified and Sustainable Livestock Production\", \"Support for the improvement of the competitiveness of MSMEs and the business climate in Paraguay\" and \"Al-Invest Verde\":"}, {"bbox": [157, 574, 1109, 629], "category": "List-item", "text": "* It is necessary to support the articulation and coordination of public sector actors as well as the articulation and strengthening of the cooperation between public and private sector."}, {"bbox": [157, 640, 1109, 747], "category": "List-item", "text": "* It is necessary to support strategic alliances and partnerships to replicate good practices, with an approach that combines capacity building, knowledge exchange, identification of potential markets, creation of incentives and opportunities. It is necessary to involve actors who have already developed good practices and to foster alliances between producers, productive associations and industry."}, {"bbox": [157, 758, 1109, 813], "category": "List-item", "text": "* Technical assistance needs to be complemented with the provision of equipment and up-to-date information and communication technology."}, {"bbox": [157, 824, 1109, 955], "category": "List-item", "text": "* Support to the private sector (MSMEs) through grants is highly valued, in particular to finance innovative projects for which access to credit is very difficult. To have a national impact, private sector grants need to be administered by intermediate business organisations (gUILds) with a country-wide reach. They have to cover several value chains and have the financial capacity to absorb and disburse the subsidies."}, {"bbox": [157, 968, 1109, 1076], "category": "List-item", "text": "* The Paraguayan Industrial Union, thanks to its participation in MIPYME COMPITE, acquired the technical and administrative-financial capacities for the development of business innovation. These can be used in the framework of this action, particularly to create a circular economy innovation mechanism and the incubate and accelerate enterprises in this area."}, {"bbox": [157, 1087, 1109, 1327], "category": "List-item", "text": "* The study on environmental traceability of Paraguayan meat and leather, issued by AL-INVEST Verde, shows the need to develop socio-environmental traceability pilots with characteristics that have been taken into account in the programming of this action: responding to the new EU requirements for products associated with deforestation, the gratuity of the system, collaboration and inter-institutional agreements to feed the system with information on the legality of production and certification of non-deforestation, the simplification of administrative procedures for the producers and manufacturers and the provision of tags for the identification of production. Additionally, the AL-INVEST Verde project is finalising the design of a pilot project for the traceability of Paraguayan leather, that aims at repositioning Paraguayan leather in the international market."}, {"bbox": [1002, 1681, 1121, 1705], "category": "Page-footer", "text": "Page 17 of 30"}]