Prominent lawyer and one of the lead members of the National Federation Party’s Think Tank, Richard Naidu says Aiyaz’s self-congratulatory post has forgotten two things - the economy grew 15% in 2022, but it had shrunk by 19% in 2020-2021, so this was mostly post-Covid catching up – and the World Bank snippet says in its next line, debt to GDP ratio soared to “above 70%”. It’s now above 90%.
Naidu tweeted this after Sayed-Khaiyum said on his facebook page that an independent report speaks a thousand words.
He quoted the World Bank saying "Fiji was the strongest performing Pacific economy in 2022, buoyed by resurgent demand in its tourism sector that saw GDP growth increase to an estimated 15.1 percent in 2022…"
The World Bank report also says Fiji is forecast to continue a stable growth trajectory, and see inflation fall as low as 2 per cent through 2023.
It also said that coming out of the COVID-19 restrictions, however, Fiji saw its debt-to-GDP ratio climb to above 70 percent — the highest in the Pacific, along with Palau.
It has already been revealed that Fiji’s debt to GDP ratio is now 90 percent.
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