To take Fiji’s GDP to a pre-COVID level would take three to five years, according to Dr Janesh Sami, from the School of Accounting Finance and Economics of the University of the South Pacific.
While speaking during the economics session at the 2021 Pacific Update yesterday, he said their analysis suggested it was going to take three years if the growth rate was at 7 per cent per annum and five years if the growth rate was 5 per cent per annum. “Now, is this economically possible is the question that is relevant in particular contexts,” he said. “Again, depends upon the opening of the international border, the extent to which we are able to bring in tourists, the economic and the political environment, the amount of confidence that we have in the system.
“If you look at the government’s revenue, it has been significantly affected as well.”
He said there had been a decline of more than 50 per cent.
“So you can imagine the impact on the fiscal policy and despite that, we have the government spending money to support the poor and the vulnerable, and that has affected public debt.
“And it’s not surprising in light on this decline in revenue, public debt has gone up because the government has had to borrow.”
Mr Sami said data on tourism earning indicated it had increased significantly since 2010 as in 2018 and 2019, tourism had brought around to $2 billion for the Fijian economy.
However as a result of the pandemic, there had been about 85 per cent decline in the tourism earning and which was going to have a very major impact on the economy as well as the spill over effect on the other related sectors.
“If you look at the growth aspects, what we can see is, we have experienced a negative growth of 15.7 per cent in 2020 and moving forward things are going to be quite challenging,” he said.
