The Economic Activity Is ‘Healthy’: Reserve Bank.

Fiji’s economy has fared well, driven by the thriving tourism sector, strong remittances, and domestic demand.

The Reserve Bank of Fiji’s (RBF) economic review for December highlighted the country’s ‘healthy’ economic performance despite slower economic growth for major trading partners, higher price pressures and softer performance in the primary and natural resource sectors.

Visitor arrivals continued to grow despite elevated room rates, with 846,920 tourists in the year to November.

This is 51.0 per cent higher than the corresponding period in 2022 and 3.2 per cent higher than in 2019.

Headline inflation, however, surged to 5.8 per cent in November as higher prices were noted across most categories, particularly food and non-alcoholic beverages, transport, housing and utilities, and restaurants and hotels categories.

RBF said inflation continued to be driven primarily by supply-side factors.

Fiji’s economic outlook going forward, according to the RBF, will be vulnerable to several challenges including adverse weather conditions and its impact on food prices, skilled labour shortage due to Fijians migrating, and capacity constraints in the tourism industry.

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