Paraguay president heads to Asia on trade mission

Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo has traveled to Taiwan, his first stop on a five-country tour of Asia aimed at increasing trade between the region and his land-locked South American nation. Lugo will especially seek markets for Paraguayan agricultural and livestock exports, his office said. Lugo, who will also be in Taiwan for the inauguration of President Ma Ying-jeou's second term in office, is scheduled to visit India, Thailand, South Korea and Japan. The Paraguayan leader is traveling with a small team that includes Foreign Minister Jorge Lara Castro and the ministers of Trade and Agriculture and Livestock. Paraguay is the world's fourth largest soy producer, and the world's 10th largest beef producer. "This is one of the president's most important trips," Lugo's official website said. Lugo, 60, was a Catholic bishop who resigned in late 2006 before announcing his candidacy for president as head of a leftist coalition. He leaves office next year. In 2010 Lugo was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma and has undergone cancer treatment in Brazil.