Growing the economy is the best way to reduce poverty and increase prosperity - Gounder

University of the South Pacific Senior Economics Lecturer Neelesh Gounder says growing the economy is the best way to reduce poverty and increase prosperity.

While presenting on Macroeconomic Management at the National Economic Summit, Goundar says macroeconomic settings is really important in terms of guiding the overall strategies and policies the government will have to come up with.

He says to grow the economy, Fiji needs to expand its agriculture sector, and revamp the Business Process Outsourcing sector which has the potential for expansion and will create more jobs.

The economist says agriculture is important from a food security perspective.

Goundar also highlighted the issue regarding ease of doing business as some of their participants raised concerns that it took a long time to get permits and electricity connections to businesses.

He says tax reforms should be carried out in context of broad social economic development agenda, so tax reforms needs to consider the impact, not only on the economy but also the social impact as well.

The USP lecturer also suggests that Board appointments should be solely be done on merit to ensure operations are run efficiently.