Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Professor Biman Prasad has highlighted that in the first three years of the National Development Plan 2025-2029, there will be greater emphasis on getting the basics right, which includes providing more households with access to clean drinking water, upgrading and maintaining roads in rural areas including drainage, formalising and upgrading informal settlements, increasing access to healthcare, strengthening and investing in social infrastructure and social protection, investing and reforming the police force to combat crime including the scourge of drugs, and finally delivering quality education, training and upskilling.
While speaking during the NDP 2025-2029 dialogue held at the University of the South Pacific, Prof. Prasad says the plan tackles the long-standing challenges that have held the country back which include low productivity, infrastructure deficit, lack of investor and business confidence, ongoing loss of skills and which ultimately result in low economic growth.
Prof. Prasad says they have identified issues, constraints, and bottlenecks that will hold us back from achieving Vision 2050, which is to take Fiji towards a high-income status.
He adds the last chapter of the Plan talks about implementation, monitoring and evaluation.
