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The World Bank is calling on Pacific island nations, including Fiji, to prioritize investment and structural reforms to unlock their long-term economic potential.

World Bank Senior Economist in the Pacific, Ekaterine Vashakmadze, highlighted investment as the cornerstone for the region’s recovery and long-term potential.

“Investment is core and key for the Pacific recovery and boosting its long-term potentials and prospects why? Not because of investment itself but because investment has a lot of spillover into factor productivity and when we talk about investment we talk about productive investment, sustainable investment.”

She also stresses the importance of structural reforms alongside investment.

“When we talk about investment, investment doesn’t come right without other policies so two areas which are important, one is structural reform, restructuring like regulations, ease regulations especially in services sector, that will help to stimulate FTI and contribute to higher investment.”

The Pacific Economic Update findings were discussed by World Bank economists and authors during a media briefing at the World Bank, which provides a twice-yearly assessment of the 11 Pacific Island economies.