The Reserve Bank of Fiji has just announced a historic $135.5 million dollars profit for the financial year 2023-2024 which ended in July.
The Governor and Chair of the Reserve Bank Board, Ariff Ali says this surpasses the all-time high profit of $102.2 million recorded last year.
Ali says the unprecedented profit was attributed to the maintenance of a comfortable level of foreign reserves throughout the financial year guided by the Reserve Bank’s prudent investment strategies and complimented by prevailing higher interest rates in the global financial markets.
He says as required under the Reserve Bank of Fiji Act (1983), a total of $136.2 million will be transferred to the Government, inclusive of the net profit earned and $1.7 million constituting one-fifth of the Revaluation Reserve Account, after a net transfer of $1 million to the Reserve Bank’s General Reserves.
He however stressed that future profits will depend on the level of foreign reserves and prevalent interest rates in international financial market.
Despite the inflationary challenge in the financial year of 2023-2024, foreign reserves remained healthy at $3.6 billion at the end of July 2024, sufficient to cover 5.8 months of retained imports, and projected to be adequate in the medium term.
Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Professor Biman Prasad says the role of the Reserve Bank in the management of the economy is very important in not only managing the monetary policy but looking at the foreign reserves, looking at the interest on how that is going to affect the inflation in the economy.
Professor Prasad says their role is to foster confidence in analysing data on a regular basis as well as informing the Government so that they are able to figure out the fiscal policies, tax policies, and the expenditure policy.
Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka says the Reserve Bank is properly located to see the wealth coming in and guard against wealth going out and has come a long way.
