FIJI’S gold production registered annual growth of 91.2 per cent to March this year compared with a decline in the same period last year.
The Reserve Bank of Fiji (RBF) in its Quarterly Review for March noted that the gold production by the Vatukoula Gold Mines Ltd (VGML) registered the annual growth to 10,696 ounces in the year to March 2018.
This follows a decline of 45.8 per cent in the same period in 2017.
Recent Fiji Bureau of Statistics (FBoS) data on gold export receipts revealed an annual decline of 1.7 per cent to $118.9 million in 2017.
This was due to plant breakdowns, unfavourable weather conditions and weak production.
The central bank, in the first quarter of 2018, noted a broadly positive sectoral performance emanating from the strong rebound in the gold sector.
