It is time for the government to announce a balanced budget.

The last two budgets were a deficit of 4.7 percent and 4.5 percent of Gross Domestic Product respectively and Fiji National University Academic Dr Rohit Kishore believes a balanced budget will send a positive sign to the market.

Dr Kishore says while the government has done well in terms of increasing compliance when it comes to revenue collection from businesses, it needs to now look at expenditure.

The academic adds businesses need to continue making profit to provide the much needed economic growth for the nation.

He says the government needs to make some hard calls and look at the operational budgets of ministries to minimize expenditure.

Another area where the bulk of the money goes is in capital projects, which the academic believes can be prioritized.

“I am sure if you look at the capital projects in the pipeline, a number of them can wait. Make them wait and that fund you can use to balance it. Balancing the budget will send a very strong positive sign to the market and to the economic growth.”

The 2019/2020 National Budget will be announced on June 7th at 7.30pm.