Economy of Fiji - Trade

Trade

Fiji runs a persistently large trade deficit. Imports in 1998 accounted for US$721 million, and exports for US$510 million, resulting in a US$116 million deficit. Tourism revenue yields a services surplus, however, which keeps the current account of its balance of payments roughly in balance ($13 million in 1998). Australia accounts for between 35% and 45% of Fiji's trade, with New Zealand, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan varying year-by-year between 5% and 15% each.

Foodstuffs, machinery, mineral fuels, beverages, tobacco, and manufactured goods are the principal imports. The two largest exports are sugar and garments, which each accounted for approximately one-quarter of export revenue in 1998 (roughly $122 million each). The sugar industry suffered in 1997 due to low world prices and rent disputes between farmers and landowners, and again in 1998 from drought, but recovered in 1999. The Fijian garment industry has developed rapidly since the introduction of tax exemptions in 1988. The industry's output has increased nearly tenfold since that time. Fish, lumber, molasses, coconut oil and ginger are also important exports, although the last two are in decline. Forestry became important as an export trade in the mid-1980s, when the pine plantations planted in the 1950s and 1960s began to mature. They sell lots of fish.

Australia's Trade Commissioner Ross Bray revealed on 26 January 2006 that Fiji's exports to Australia are achieving an annual growth rate of 5%. More than 31,000 Australian companies were trading in the Pacific, half of them in Fiji, Bray said.