‘Misleading’

An Australian multinational and financial services company says Fiji’s year- end inflation rate was projected at an average of three per cent.

The development on Friday followed SunBiz queries over its earlier position where Fiji’s inflation rate was 1.5 per cent.

“We project year-end inflation at an average of 3 per cent barring any major shocks,” Westpac said. “Our report is developed by using terminologies from the Fiji Bureau of Statistics.”

The Bureau of Statistics is expected to pen in a date next week to meet with this newspaper over such queries.

Method of calculation

Leading textile manufacturer, Performance Flotation Development (Fiji) Limited has since questioned the bank and bureau’s methodology of statistical calculation over Fiji’s inflation rate.

In a recent report, Westpac said Fiji’s inflation rate for February

Australia’s second largest bank says Fiji will feel inflation through rising energy and fuel costs in the second half of the year.

was impacted by factors that included alcohol, tobacco and narcotics.

Westpac later clarified that narcotics was in fact kava – which trading partners Australia, the United States of America and New Zealand list as a food item, not a drug.

Misleading

Regardless, the inflation rate for Fiji was a far cry from the country’s major trading partners Aus

Westpac chief executive officerShane Smith outside the main branch, Suva, in this file photo.

QUESTIONS OVER WHY KAVA IS INCLUDED IN THE BASKET, IN ‘FAIRY TALE RATE OF 1.5%’

ANZ said a range of persistent geopolitical factors were likely to continue upwards pressure on inflation in the medium term.

“For Fiji, like other markets across the world, this inflation will be felt particularly through rising energy and fuel prices in the second half of 2023,”ANZ country head, Rabih Yazbek.

“While container freight rates have stabilised and softened in some markets, the cost of manufactured goods in source coun

tralia and New Zealand, where inflation hovered around 6-7 per cent. “There is some explaining that needs to be done by the authorities,” PFD managing director, Mike Towler said.

“If we take their average inflation rate over the past 12 months to March 2023, then the inflation rate is 4 per cent; the calendar year to December 2022 was 4.3 per cent. “The Westpac Wave report quoted the February 2023 inflation rate at 1.5 per cent, which is a bit misleadtries has gone higher wages.

“That will likely flow through to retail prices and keep inflation elevated this year.”

ANZ continued to work closely with commercial customers to help meet higher funding required for stock and inventory under the current inflationary environment, Mr Yazbek said.

Performance up because

Bureau of Stats called out

Flotation of ing as it is only for the month of February 2023.

“Their forecast for 2023 is 3 per cent on the assumption that prices will continue to come down.

“That is both brave and optimistic.”

The Reserve Bank of Fiji and the Association of Banks in Fiji did not respond to queries when this edition went to print.

Development (Fiji) Ltd (PFD), which largely exports lifejackets to New Zealand and Australia, also called out the Bureau of Statistics over the calculation.

To get a better level of real inflation, the Bureau of Statistics needed to go out to ask the Fijian population about items with the most impact on daily living, Mr Towler said.

“Everyone who likes an occasional drink of grog will know that the price is volatile and fluctuates based on supply, quality or whether the waka is pure or not,” he said.

“But it really should not be included in the basket of items that determines our inflation rate; if it is, it needs a little more science in the calculation.

“If you take out alcohol, tobacco and narcotics – kava in this case - and education, then our real world expenses will reflect our inflation rate closer to our major trading partners Australia and New Zealand, not the fairy tale that we are being told of 1.5 per cent.”