Government expects food and fuel prices to continue to increase because of global food and fuel supply disruptions caused by the Ukraine invasion, says Economy Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.
He told the Parliament yesterday the inflationary pressure had risen globally because of global supply chain disruptions.
He was responding to the FijiFirst member of the Parliament Sanjay Kirpal’s question in the Parliament as to what measures the Fijian Government had adopted to ease inflationary pressures emanating from rising international food and fuel prices.
“Due to high import price and freight cost, the entire world is actually facing global supply chain disruptions, bent-up demand has been outpacing supply itself as supply chains have been affected by the Ukraine-Russian war,” he said.
“Crude oil prices is currently hovering over $US100 ($F208) a barrel.
“Wheat and other commodity prices have been rising rapidly.
“Domestic price has also risen in recent months, reflecting international price developments.”
Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said the annual inflation stood up at 4.7 per cent in March, 2022.
“Mauritius, they’re a country like ours, tourism-driven country. The inflation rate there as of February this year is 9 per cent itself.”
Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said they had carried out various revisions to the 2021-2022 budget to assist Fijians.
“There is zero-rated VAT on 21 household items. “This will mean Government will forego $163 million.
“However, of course, we see that there is a benefit for the overall population in Fiji too.
“International crude oil prices have increased to $US100 a barrel as stated earlier.
“To mitigate against these rising food prices, we have removed the 20 cents levy per litre of fuel duty that we had.
“As a result of this Government loses out about $56 million in direct collections.
“Again this is to help ordinary Fijians, businesses, carrier drivers, bus drivers, bus companies, minibus companies et cetera.”
