Argentina's 300% inflation and propped-up peso spawn Paraguay border ghost town

A customer and a salesperson pose for a photograph while holding Argentine and Paraguayan bills at a market near the border with Argentina, in Nanawa, Paraguay May 16, 2024. REUTERS/Cesar Olmedo

NANAWA, Paraguay (Reuters) - Paraguayan shoppers used to flock in their droves to the border town of Nanawa to buy cheap imports from Argentina, where the weak peso currency for years kept relative prices low for fuel, medicine and groceries smuggled in across the frontier.

Now Nanawa is a ghost town, with prices of the contraband pushed up steeply by Argentina's rare mix of near 300% inflation and a propped-up peso that has even rallied against the dollar in widely-used parallel markets under libertarian President Javier Milei.