RBF Governor, Ariff Ali

Barring any major shocks, 2019 should register the 10th consecutive year of positive growth.

The Reserve Bank anticipates the Fijian economy will expand by 3.4 percent this year.

The RBF forecasts that “sectoral performances for this year are expected to be generally positive consistent with the current favourable outlook for the domestic economy.

Governor, Ariff Ali says foreign reserves are adequate at over one billion dollars as at yesterday, sufficient to cover 4.2 months of retained imports of goods and non-factor services.

Ali says this is expected to remain stable in the medium term.

Annual inflation edged-up to 5.1 percent last month from 4.9 percent noted in last December.

Core inflation, excluding volatile items such as food, energy, education, and yaqona, was lower at 3.4 percent.

Headline inflation is expected to subside to around 3.5 percent by year-end.

Ali concluded that in light of the latest global and domestic economic developments and the stable medium-term outlook for inflation and foreign reserves, the monetary policy stance will remain accommodative.

The RBF Board has agreed to keep the Overnight Policy Rate unchanged at 0.5 percent.