Governor of the reserve bank and chairman of the Macroeconomics committee Ariff Ali says the out turn in the economy has been impacted by elevated cost of living as inflation soared to 7.1 percent in April 2024.

Ali in a release on the Macroeconomics projections for the Fiji economy 2024- 2026 says while pipeline projects look promising, investment activity is slow-paced due to several challenges, such as high building and material costs, skill shortages and red tape.

The Governor says apart from the surprisingly strong growth in tourist arrivals up to April and higher gold output due to the start of production at Tuvatu Gold Mine, other sector outcomes are performing below par.

He says the latest available data and weaker incoming forward-looking information have led to a downward revision to Fiji’s 2024 GDP growth forecast to 2.8 percent from 3.4 percent projected in November 2023.

He says the revised forecast takes into account the possible increase Government expenditure in the 2024-2025 National Budget to boost the economy. The other key sectors to contribute towards this growth include the financial, agriculture, transport, accommodation, wholesale and retail sales, manufacturing, information and communication, electricity, construction, mining and administration sectors.

We will have more details in our major bulletin.