GDP expected to grow to 3.8% this year - Waqabaca

Permanent Secretary for Finance, Filimone Waqabaca said they are expecting Fiji’s Gross Domestic Product to grow to 3.8 percent this year.

GDP is the market value of all officially recognized final goods and services produced within a country in a year, or over a given period of time.

Waqabaca said our GDP has grown from 2.2 per cent in 2012 to 3.6 per cent in 2013.

He said the global GDP growth will be 3.6 per cent and our GDP growth will be higher than Fiji’s trading partners such

as Australia, which will grow by an estimated 2.8 per cent, New Zealand which will grow by an estimated 2.9 per cent and Japan which will grow by an estimated 1.7 per cent.

He said Fiji is on target to reach 5% GDP growth in the coming years.

While opening the 11th Pacific Islands Tax Administrators Association meeting yesterday, Waqabaca also highlighted that they have lowered tax rates and increased the threshold and they have started seeing results.

He added the government has lowered the corporate tax rates

to allow businesses to invest.