27 Apr 2009

Fiji's Mahendra Chaudhry says return to democracy is a key to economy coming right

4:06 pm on 27 April 2009

The head of the Fiji Labour Party says the country's economy will continue to fail unless there is a return to parliamentary democracy.

The Reserve Bank recently devalued the currency in an effort to stimulate the flagging economy.

Mahendra Chaudhry, who was Minister of Finance for the first eighteen months of the interim government says the economy has been troubled for the past six months.

He says that is partly due to the global economic crisis, but other issues need to be addressed.

"One of them of course is political stability. That will only come when we return to parliamentary democracy, so it is very important to get that process back into action. As it is the economy if feeling the strain and I think that strain will multiply in strength over the coming months, unless there's some progress towards a return to democracy."

Mahendra Chaudhry says at the very least, Fiji needs to be seen to making moves towards democratic rule.