‘Policies play vital role
POLITICAL institutional arrangements and their policies play a vital role in sustaining the economy of any country, says noted University of the South Pacific academic Dr Neelesh Gounder.
As such, elections are likely to pique the interest of private sector organisations.
Dr Gounder said different stakeholders within the economic system were expected to respond to changes in political institutional arrangements or discourse around politics.
“One of the key stakeholders within the economy is the private sector and the private sector is basically what drives the economy and economic activity mostly eventuates from the private sector,” he said.
“So for the private sector, the policies and the framework within which these policies are developed, and the rules and regulations that emerge from the Government, are important in terms of how
INVESTOR confidence in the Fijian economy has declined by about 50 per cent since 2013, long before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the country, says University of the South Pacific senior economic lecturer Dr Neelesh Gounder.
He said this in an interview with The Fiji Times when asked if overseas investors would take a “wait and see” approach in terms of the outcome of the 2022 General Election, before investing in Fiji.
“So investors are also very mindful of political stability in any country,” Dr Gounder said.
“Any investor who wants to invest in a country would be concerned with levels of business confidence and investor confidence.
“So I would assume that that is likely to be the case.
“Because what we have seen in the past 10 years, investment has actually continued to decline.
“Just prior to COVID, the rate of investment was around 13 to 14 per cent of GDP - and that’s a decline compared with 2013 when we had investment levels of around 26 per cent of GDP - so it’s almost half of what we had compared with in 2013.
“This is relative to GDP. So I think that really shows that we aren’t able to attraJecrtrhyiNghaleirvolenvoe(lfsrofnt) investwmitehntAamsawnei do in tAhpeapkuaskti be linktehdetroaainnwumhilbeelrooafding factorsc,abnuetaotnKeoorfownuhbicuh, will be investor confidence in the economy, the broader economy.” they see moving forward.
“The political process, and elections are part of the political process, is very important in terms of sending specific signals to different stakeholders within the economic system.”
Dr Gounder said different stakeholders, especially within the private sector, were expected to wait for such indicators and