Supermarkets have drastically reduced prices over the last few months, providing Fijians their best shopping deals.

The Supermarket competition started through Government’s initiatives carried out by the Fiji Competition and Consumer Council.

FCCC, Chief Executive, Joel Abraham says this supermarket war has created a very competitive market and changed the landscape of doing business.

“The FCCC being the institution responsible for Competition we held a series of discussion with the objective of stimulating competition into the market to ensure the market is able to enhance the welfare of Fijians and that the market becomes competitive.”

Abraham says after discussions with major supermarkets the price reductions commenced.

He adds supermarkets have been dropping their prices by changing the operation model.

“Instead of selling less items and charging more or making more profits on one particular item. What the high volume model does is it encourages any particular retailer/ trader to sell more and reduce the margin but because you are selling more you are making more money because – the more you sell the more you are getting.”

Economy Minister, Aiyaz Syed-Khaiyum says this is all in line with Government’s vision to allow Fijians to get the best value for their dollar.

“We are speaking to the Commerce Commission, FRCS through the Economic Intelligence Unit that we are in the process setting up through the Ministry of Economy and we will have a collective approach to this. The reality is that we need to be able to reduce the price of these goods because many of these prices are actually hiked up.”

Its simple economics; the drop in price of goods means price competition and Fijians reaping the benefits.