Overseas Capital

Prosperous Fiji

Budgets For—

Tax Concessions And Encouragement Of

Overseas Capital

FINANCIAL announcements of considerable importance to Fiji were made at the Budget Session of the Legislative Council on No vember 26: An additional £lOO,OOO will be raised in • the next year by impos ing a small export tax on certain products, including 8/- per ton on sugar.

If the export tax is agreed to by Council, the basic rate of income tax will be reduced from 1/3 to 1/-.

A minimum income tax payment of £4 is proposed; and, if this is agreed to, the Residential Tax of £2, now paid by all non-Fijian males, will be abolished.

The proposal for double taxation (taxation of Company profits after they have been distributed to share holders) has been dropped.

Special measures are announced to encourage overseas capital to go to Fiji. The Governor pointed out that there now was a great advant age in Australian companies invest ing in Fiji—they could pay at either Australian or Fiji rates, and the Fiji rates now were definitely lower than Australian.

A Commerce and Industries Branch of the Secretariat is being set up to assist potential investors in new undertakings in the Colony.

Income taxation rates on the first £5,000 of Companies’ profits are to be reduced.

The Colony’s surplus this year, as a result of continued prosperity, will be between £200,000 and £300,000, instead of a deficit of £19,000, as originally budgeted.

The estimates of Customs tax for 1954 are being exceeded by at least £400,000 and income tax by some

£Loo,Ooo.

The anticipated surplus will go to the Development Fund, to assist in financing Fiji’s £8,000,000 Develop ment Plan which will cover the period 1955-60.

The Government plans an ex penditure of just over £5,000,000 in 1955, and some special measures are forecast to provide the necessary finance.

THE Vatukoula goldmines are

passing through a phase of major development, following the discovery of rich gold at dist ances around 1,700 feet down, and considerable distances away from existing shafts. This will consider ably prolong the goldfield’s life.

The quality standard of copra and bananas produced for export is to be raised. Cocoa planting on a big scale is being encouraged.

The Sugar Stabilisation Fund soon

will reach £2,000,000; so the 35/- per ton deducted from sugar exported to Britain will be reduced to 25/-.

There now is less interest in the plan to send Fiji-Indian labourers to New Caledonia: but “the Gov ernor has been approached privately about the possibility of supplying a thousand or more labourers to an other Pacific Group.”

The Governor warmly commended the efforts being made by all sections—and especially the senti ments expressed by Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna on Cession Day at Levuka— to introduce harmonious relations between all races, so as to ensure peaceful and happy progress in the Colony of Fiji.