The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Hon. Biman Prasad attended the Post Budget Breakfast hosted by the Fiji Commerce & Employers Federation at the Grand Pacific Hotel this morning. (28.06.25)
Speaking at this event, DPM Prasad emphasised that the 2025-2026 budget was built on the foundations that was laid out in the previous two budgets.
He said as part of the Ministry of Finance’s economic governance strategy, it is to ensure that the government is able to fund itself.
“The government is now able to create a strategy where in the short to medium term and in the long term we are able to create a sustainable level of debt and a sustainable level of growth.”
“And only through that can we do everything else, building our social infrastructure, health, education, and others.”
The Deputy Prime Minister also said, for the first time in two years, the forecast on government revenue collection has been exceeded, meaning that the government collected more revenue than what was forecasted in the budget.
“And that's a very good strategy, a very good indication of a very honest assessment of where our revenue, our expenditure, our deficit, and our debt were to be. So, we did that in the first budget. And we were able to use those increases in revenue to support our people.”
“We increased the welfare payments, support for agriculture in a big way, and support for SMEs, and that helped us to achieve a growth rate of about 4%.”
He added that the strategy in this budget, with the increase in spending, will focus on building key infrastructure and announcing some major projects, which will spur further economic growth in the country.
“This growth will help us to keep our debt-to-GDP ratio at an acceptable and sustainable level.”