Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Biman Prasad is in Washington DC to attend the 2023 World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings.

DPM Prasad met the Vice President of the World Bank. Manuella Ferro and Executive Director Wempi Saputra and thanked the Bank for its excellent support during the pandemic and the critical role played by the World Bank in financing Fiji’s economic development.

Key discussions focused on the newly proposed Vanua Levu Tourism Project which is expected to be finalised by July 2023 and aims to build sustainable economic growth in Vanua Levu through destination development, investments in resilient infrastructure and essential services, an improved tourism enabling environment, and institutional coordination.

The Vanua Levu Tourism Project is a major step towards economic diversification by firstly diversifying Fiji’s tourism sector and increasing its geographic spread and the type of experience that’s on offer in Fiji. Vanua Levu’s abundant and untapped nature-based tourism resources offer great potential to help achieve this. The proposed project is also expected to help Fiji address regional disparities and can be a game changer for the Northern Division.

Discussions also focused on World Bank support towards improving Fiji’s health service delivery, upgrade of water infrastructure, climate resilience building, continuity of concessional finance, future budget support operations and fiscal reforms needed to ensure fiscal sustainability.

DPM Prasad will be meeting other World Bank and IMF officials over the next few days and has a number of public speaking engagements focused on small island developing states (SIDs) and climate change