{"id":68518,"date":"2015-02-24T06:22:28","date_gmt":"2015-02-24T11:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/countingpips.com\/?p=68518"},"modified":"2015-02-24T07:18:50","modified_gmt":"2015-02-24T12:18:50","slug":"fiji-maintains-rate-twin-objectives-still-intact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/2015\/02\/fiji-maintains-rate-twin-objectives-still-intact\/","title":{"rendered":"Fiji maintains rate, twin objectives still intact"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"inves-2145151381\" class=\"inves-below-title-posts inves-entity-placement\"><div id =\"posts_date_custom\"><div align=\"left\">February 24, 2015<\/div><hr style=\"border: none; border-bottom: 3px solid black;\">\r\n<\/div><\/div><p>By <a href=\"http:\/\/www.centralbanknews.info\/\"><u>CentralBankNews.info<\/u><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp; &nbsp; Fiji&#8217;s central bank maintained its benchmark Overnight Policy Rate (OPR) at 0.5 percent, saying its twin monetary policy objectives remain intact despite a rise in credit and imports that have put some pressure on the balance of payments.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; The Reserve Bank of Fiji (RBF), which has held rates steady since November 2011, added that inflation was forecast to remain &#8220;at comfortable levels throughout 2015&#8221; given soft global commodity prices and low inflation among trading partners. <br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; As of Feb. 24, Fiji&#8217;s foreign reserves amounted to $1.806.3 billion, sufficient to cover 4.5 months of imports, down from $1.842.5 billion as of Jan. 29.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp; &nbsp;The Reserve Bank of Fiji issued the following statement:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Reserve Bank of Fiji (RBF) Board at its monthly meeting on 24 February agreed to maintain the Overnight Policy Rate (OPR) at 0.5 percent.<br \/>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;In announcing the decision, the Governor and Chairman of the Board, Mr Barry Whiteside stated that aggregate demand continues to expand aided by higher consumption, investment and Government spending. &nbsp;As a result, credit and imports have risen and put some pressure on the overall balance of payments position. &nbsp;However, despite the risks, the outlook for the twin objectives of monetary policy remains intact for now. <br \/><a name='more'><\/a><br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; Inflation was 0.2 percent in January but is expected to increase slightly from February onwards as the impact of free primary and secondary tuition falls out. &nbsp;Nonetheless, inflation is forecast to remain at comfortable levels throughout 2015 given the soft global commodity prices (oil and food) and low trading partner inflation. &nbsp;Foreign reserves were around $1,806.3 million on 24 February, sufficient to cover 4.5 months of retained imports of goods and non-factor services and are projected to remain adequate throughout 2015. &nbsp;<br \/>&nbsp;The Chairman concluded that, \u201cthe Reserve Bank will continue to monitor international as well as domestic developments and re-align monetary policy stance if needed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp; &nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.centralbanknews.info\/\">www.CentralBankNews.info<\/a><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By CentralBankNews.info &nbsp; &nbsp; Fiji&#8217;s central bank maintained its benchmark Overnight Policy Rate (OPR) at 0.5 percent, saying its twin monetary policy objectives remain intact despite a rise in credit and imports that have put some pressure on the balance of payments.&nbsp; &nbsp; The Reserve Bank of Fiji (RBF), which has held rates steady since [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","no-post-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68518\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}