Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum met with officials from the Fiji Bureau of Statistics and the Reserve Bank of Fiji to discuss the upcoming impact evaluation exercise of the secured transactions reform (STR) yesterday (15/08/22).

This evaluation will assess the effectiveness of the reform which resulted in the introduction of the Personal Property Securities Act 2017 and the subsequent launch of Fiji’s online movable asset collateral registry, the Personal Property Securities Registry in May 2019.

Following three years of operations and strong activity noted through the online platform, it is timely to assess whether the benefits of the reform are being transferred to the MSME sector.

The A-G highlighted the importance of creating awareness of Government interventions by all stakeholders so that the target sectors, in this case, MSMEs can benefit from initiatives like the secured transactions reform.

The baseline survey of the impact evaluation is expected to commence in the coming months and follows ongoing work with the financial industry to develop products that will capitalise on the reform work to date.

The evaluation exercise including support for the implementation of the STR is funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), with technical assistance provided by the Pacific Private Sector Development Initiative.