Minister for Economy, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says despite being classified as a middle-income country, Fiji was able to get concessional funding from the World Bank.

He was responding to National Federation Party Leader, Professor Biman Prasad who while debating on the Investment Fiji Bill 2022, highlighted investors do not have confidence in Fiji because of the borrowing.

“When you run large deficits, when you borrow and spend, when you growth strategy is borrowing and spending the private investors are worried. This is why businesses and investors in every country are worried about what the government does, how it spends. Because ultimately, the burden of that debt not only falls on the people but also falls on the businesses”.

Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says the ANZ report recently by Economist Dr Kishti Sen states that Fiji’s debt portfolio has stability as we have the ability to pay our loans.

He says inundation caused by climate change has damaged the majority of our highways and these things cost money to repair.

Sayed-Khaiyum says Fiji got concessional funding from the World Bank at 0% interest rate and 0.75% service charge, and this means Fiji will only pay back 47% of the funds.

“They said to us that we going around the world with a begging bowl. They called me a beggar. They called the PM going around talking about it a beggar. We are not beggars, we are patriotic people who are concerned about our country.”

He also highlighted that Fiji borrowed $900m at 0.01 percent from JICA.

He says this is a 40-year term loan with a 10 year grace period and the grant component is 60 percent.