The Reserve Bank of Fiji today announced changes to its export finance facility that will enable more exporters to have access to the facility.

The export finance facility (EFF) is a scheme whereby the Reserve Bank provides funds to the commercial banks and Fiji Development Bank for on-lending to exporters and it is designed to assist the export sector by ensuring the availability of credit at relatively low interest rates.
The changes, effective from today are:

The interest rate charged to commercial banks and the FDB for back to back financing under the EEF, will now be aligned to the 182 day Treasury Bills market rate with a cap of 2 percent. The banks can on-lend the funds to exporters with a maximum added margin of 4 percent.

The local value added content requirement of 40 percent has been removed.

Under the pre-shipment lump sum facility, the loan eligibility amount has been increased from 20 percent to 50 percent and is now based on the LVAC value instead of total exports value.

This list of ineligible exports has been extended to include re-exports.