Finance Minister, Professor Biman Prasad says the Coalition Government will intensify its effort to ease the impact of cost of living on Fijians.

Professor Prasad says the government has made significant strides to address inflation.

“The wages and salaries in the formal sector have also gone up by 10 to 12 percent. In the budget, we did not raise the income threshold. So, all those people earning below $30,000 are not paying taxes. We did not touch that because we wanted to ensure that we support.”

Professor Prasad says the increase in prices of goods and services remain uncontrollable, as it is determined by a lot of factors locally and internationally.

“So, a lot of the imported food. So, if the price of food in New Zealand goes up, Australia goes up, if the exchange rate, you know, our dollar value goes down, if we are importing from those countries – obviously the prices here will go up.”

The Finance Minister adds that Fiji’s annual inflation is much lower than other countries.