THE Reserve Bank of Fiji remains confident of a 2.7 per cent economic growth with expectations of more government capital expenditure in this second half of the year.
Governor Barry Whiteside said there were some large projects in progress or about to get started.
"....We are expecting the government to spend more..," Mr Whiteside said.
His comments come a month before a government delegation is due to meet with Moody's officials during the annual meeting of the International Monetary and World Bank in mid-October. Fiji officials are expected to give an update on Fiji's performance, the reforms undertaken, revised statistics and the status of the election program.
Last month, Moody's assessed our GDP growth to be 1.5 per cent while the current estimate is 2.7 per cent. It also expected inflation to hover around 5 per cent while the RBF estimate is 3.5 per cent.
Mr Whiteside said there were some dangers to the economic growth from global forces but domestically, there were some strong growth expected.
The RBF recently revised investment to be 18 per cent of the GDP — up by 2 per cent. Mr Whiteside the growth was both from the government and private sector investments. He said some projects were already in progress such as the Grand Pacific Hotel while some are expected to start soon such as the Casino project in the west and the refurbishment of the Shangri-La's Fijian Hotel.
Mr Whiteside said the figure should increase with the arrival of Air Pacific's new aircraft from next year.
However, the governor refrained from commenting on the contingent liabilities of the state.