The Reserve Bank of Fiji says there is abundant liquidity in the banking system – totalling $1,990.8million as at December 31 last year.

And it adds that together with quantitative easing measures by the central bank, it has helped  keep borrowing rates low.

In its economic review for the December month-end, the RBF stated that accordingly, commercial banks’ lending and deposit rates declined over the year and over the month in November last year, except for new time deposit rate that increased over the month.

It added that the weighted average outstanding lending rate of banks was 5.79 per cent in November compared to 6.15 per cent a year ago.

The RBF also noted that in November last year, the Fijian dollar appreciated against the Australian dollar (2.5 per cent), New Zealand dollar (+2.4per cent) and the Euro (+0.3 per cent) but depreciated against the Japanese Yen (-3.1 per cent) and the US dollar (-3.1 per cent).

Over the year, the Fijian dollar strengthened against the Japanese Yen (+6.6 per cent), Euro (+3.5 per cent), AUD (+1.1per cent) and the NZD (+0.7per cent) but weakened against the USD (-2.4 per cent).