Performance Reflects Leadership:Economist

Performance Reflects Leadership:Economist
www.fijivillage.com - 09/06/2008

A leading Economist believes that the current poor state of the economy is because of lack of good leadership to take the country in the right direction.Dr Mahendra Reddy, while strongly denouncing claims by the interim Finance Minister that the country is on the mend, said most pacific islands countries economy are not doing well because there is a leadership problem.Reddy said Fiji's economy has faced a lot of uncertainty from January which in turn has contributed a lot to investors losing confidence.This comes after Interim Finance Minister Mahendra Chaudhry that the economy is on the right track and there are positive indicators that the economy is definitely on the mend in the short span of 15-18 months, compared to the highly precarious state it was in when they took over from the Qarase led SDL government. According to Chaudhry, Fiji's Foreign reserves have stabilized, the Government's debt levels have declined to 47% compared to the 52% under the SDL led Government, the Budget deficit has been contained to less than 2% from 5% of the Gross Domestic Product, and the interests rates have also declined from 14-15% right down to 7%.