{"id":44752,"date":"2013-11-28T10:40:43","date_gmt":"2013-11-28T15:40:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/countingpips.com\/forex-news\/?p=44752"},"modified":"2013-11-28T10:40:44","modified_gmt":"2013-11-28T15:40:44","slug":"fiji-holds-rate-steady-sees-2014-growth-over-3-pct","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/2013\/11\/28\/fiji-holds-rate-steady-sees-2014-growth-over-3-pct\/","title":{"rendered":"Fiji holds rate steady, sees 2014 growth over 3 pct"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By <a href=\"http:\/\/www.centralbanknews.info\/\"><u>CentralBankNews.info<\/u><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp; &nbsp;<span style=\"font-family: inherit\"> Fiji&#8217;s central bank maintained its overnight policy rate (OPR) steady at 0.5 percent, saying a soft global economic climate means growth has to be driven by domestic forces and the current policy stance remains appropriate and complementary to the government&#8217;s policy initiatives.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: inherit\">&nbsp; &nbsp; The Reserve Bank of Fiji, which has maintained rates since December 2011, said consumption and investment activity remain buoyant, supported by adequate liquidity and low interest rates.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: inherit\">&nbsp; &nbsp;\u201cThe growth forecast for 2014 is now expected to be higher than the 3.0&nbsp;percent estimated prior to announcement of the 2014 National Budget and commended Government&nbsp;for the increased capital expenditure and the continuation of the structural reforms,\u201d said the bank&#8217;s governor, Barry Whiteside.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: inherit\">&nbsp; &nbsp; In October the central bank revised upwards its forecast for growth this year to 3.6 percent, up from a forecast of 3.2 percent in August, and also raised its 2014 growth forecast to 3.0 percent from an earlier 2.5 percent. In 2012 Fiji&#8217;s Gross Domestic Product grew by an estimated 2.2 percent.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: inherit\">&nbsp; &nbsp; Higher government spending will boost imports and this will pose a downside risk to Fiji&#8217;s balance of payments next year, but Whiteside added that foreign reserves are at record highs and expected to remain comfortable.<\/span><br \/><a name='more'><\/a><br \/><span style=\"font-family: inherit\"><span style=\"font-size: small\">&nbsp; &nbsp; Fiji&#8217;s foreign reserves were US$1.870 billion, up from $1.783 billion in September, sufficient to cover 5.1&nbsp;<\/span>months<span style=\"font-size: small\">&nbsp;of imports, the bank said.<\/span><\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: inherit\"><span style=\"font-size: small\">&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span>Fiji&#8217;s inflation rate rose to 3.3 percent in October from 3.1 percent the previous month, largely due to higher prices of certain food and alcohol items.&nbsp;<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: inherit\">&nbsp; &nbsp; The Reserve Bank forecast year-end&nbsp;inflation of 3.0 percent in October.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman\">&nbsp; &nbsp; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.centralbanknews.info\/\">www.CentralBankNews.info<\/a><\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman'\"><span style=\"font-size: small\">&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span><\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman';font-size: 12pt\">&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By CentralBankNews.info &nbsp; &nbsp; Fiji&#8217;s central bank maintained its overnight policy rate (OPR) steady at 0.5 percent, saying a soft global economic climate means growth has to be driven by domestic forces and the current policy stance remains appropriate and complementary to the government&#8217;s policy initiatives.&nbsp; &nbsp; The Reserve Bank of Fiji, which has maintained &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/2013\/11\/28\/fiji-holds-rate-steady-sees-2014-growth-over-3-pct\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Fiji holds rate steady, sees 2014 growth over 3 pct&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44752\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}