THE Fijian Government has to be careful when selling State assets to meet fiscal needs, says International Monetary Fund (IMF) deputy managing director Min Zhu.
Fiscal relates to Government revenue, especially taxes. He said assets sales were a short-term issue while fiscal needs were medium and long-term.
“We are working with the Fijian authorities trying to work out the medium term fiscal package to solve the fiscal stability issues rather than the short-term sell assets,” Mr Zhu said at a press conference on the margins of the International Monetary Fund conference in Peru.
His comment comes after a question was posed by this newspaper whether the sale of government assets was healthy for the Fijian economy. This comes in light of plans by Government to divest shares in Airports Fiji Ltd (AFL), Fiji Electricity Authority (FEA), Fiji Ports Corporation Ltd and Government Printing and Stationery Department this year.
“Selling assets to meet fiscal term need is a completely different thing,” Mr Min said.
There has been an expression of interest put out by Public Enterprises Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum early this year on the partial divestment of FEA, Fiji Ports and AFL.
Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said earlier they were exploring avenues and talking to multilateral partners such as ADB about divesting shares that were held in Government-owned entities.
