RBF Governor, Ariff Ali

The Government received $32.5 million from the Reserve Bank of Fiji for the 2017/2018 financial year.

This compares with a transfer of $29.4million to the Government for the financial year ended July 31st, 2017.

The $32.5 million transfer was made possible following a profit of $31.5million.

RBF’s profit is underpinned by the income earned from foreign reserves holdings which are invested in safe and liquid assets offshore.

Governor, Ariff Ali says in the 2018 financial year, the bank earned $45 million in net foreign exchange income, boosted by elevated levels of foreign reserves.

Ali adds while the objective of the central bank is not to maximize profits, making losses is also not acceptable.

The Governor says Fiji’s debt levels have also been manageable.

“When you look at the spending the Government has made associated with Tropical Cyclone Winston and cyclones thereafter, the Government has spent has spent close to half a billion dollars. When you take that figure out our debt to GDP is somewhere around 42 percent and that is good.”

Ali says if in the next two years Fiji doesn’t suffer from any natural disaster, then there is a great opportunity for the Government to decrease some of its expenses.

He adds this will allow for the debt levels to decrease to 40 percent.