The Reserve Bank of Fiji reveals that foreign reserves remain at adequate levels at $3.1b at the end of last month.

This is sufficient to cover 10.8 months of retained imports.

RBF in its economic review says the medium-term foreign reserves outlook remains comfortable as the government will finance a large part of next year’s fiscal deficit through external loans.

RBF Governor Ariff Ali says they also provided an additional $200 million allocation to the Disaster Rehabilitation and Containment Facility to help businesses maintain their operations and support employees during this pandemic.

Ali adds that RBF has maintained its accommodative monetary policy stance in July by keeping the Overnight Policy Rate unchanged at 0.25 percent in light of the stable outlook for inflation and weak domestic economic conditions.

The unrelenting impact of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect our Tourism sector with earnings declining by 99.1 percent in the first quarter.

Ali adds that personal remittance also grew by 27.7 percent in the first five months, equivalent to $332m.