Restore investor confidence: PM
As Government works to restore investor confidence in the country, the Prime Minister has called on participants of the National Economic Summit to improve the Fiji’s business environment.
About 500 people gathered at the Grand Pacific Hotel on Thursday and Friday, to brainstorm the nation’s way forward.
Organisations such as the Reserve Bank of Fiji, Fiji National Provident Fund, Investment Fiji, The World Bank, and the Government appointed Fiscal Review Committee attended the summit.
“We need to rebuild our infrastructure which has been neglected,” Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka
Fiji will hit 100 per cent of its debt to gross domestic product (GDP) in 10 years if no effective measures are taken, said the Fiscal Review Committee chairperson, Richard Naidu.
Debt to GDP is a formula used to measure national debt against economic productivity.
Fiji’s debt to GDP is about 90 per cent.
Mr Naidu made the comment based on the report published by The World Bank and International Monetary Fund recently.
Speaking at the National Economic Summit, he said Fiji was the fourth highest country to have suffered from the impact of COVID-19. “Business as usual is not an option,” he said.
“We have a big challenge around physical infrastructure around the Suva and Nausori corridor. And the huge loss of skills.”
Mr Naidu said economic growth was for everyone and the Government needed to be careful in cutting down on certain expenditures. He said the high debt to GDP would affect borrowing efforts. said.
He said they had to look at ways to ease the burden of the high cost of living.
He also said multilateral and bilateral relations with trading and development partners were needed, as well as a need to strengthen the private sector.
“Reshaping our future means more than just promoting economic growth and development.
“We need to reshape our future through genuine dialogue and collaboration.”
Mr Rabuka was confident the recommendations from the summit would contribute to the formulation of the National Budget and the National Development Plan.
‘Need time and political will’
Fijian Holdings Limited chief executive officer, Jioji Koroi said stakeholders needed time and political will to get out of the national debt crisis in Fiji.
Effective policies would also be needed to diversify resources effectively.
There are opportunities the private sector can dwell on, he said.
“We need to diversify into areas that give us strength and industries that inversely correlate to each other,” Mr Koroi said.
He said there was a need to look into monetary policies.
“The accommodative monetary stance is still there; we still have a lot of liquidity in the system, and the interest rate is still very low,” he said.
Mr Koroi said Government and stakeholders could look into the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector, mahogany, and the potential rural businesses have.
“The BPO sector has a very supportive ecosystem and there is an ambition for it to employ up to 25,000 people,” said Mr Koroi.
“Mahogany is an interesting sector with an estimated $5 billion worth of the product,” he said.