domestic demand had been buoyant and investment continued to pick up. as a result, our labour market is finding some traction. however we are always prone to the threat of natural disasters and cyclone evan showed that we must not be complacent. there also continue to be risks on the external front with the recent downward revisions in global growth. despite the downside risks the reserve bank ’ s twin objectives of low inflation and a comfortable level of foreign reserves presently remain intact. inflation fell to 1. 5 percent in december then blipped upwards to 3. 2 percent in january following cyclone evan. our endyear expectation is around 3 percent. foreign reserves are currently at $ 1. 6 billion or sufficient to pay for just under 5 months of imports of goods and services. before i close i would just like to mention that the credit rating agency moody ’ s recently upgraded fiji ’ s credit rating outlook from ‘ negative ’ to ‘ stable ’, citing improved fiscal and macroeconomic outcomes and the stability of fiji ’ s external payments position. this is now in line with the rating and views of another agency, standard & poors, and puts a positive spin on our economic outlook. conclusion ladies and gentlemen, i have taken up a lot of your time and it is my great pleasure to launch anz ’ s renminbi trading platform today. i hope all local businesses that have links with the peoples republic of china will explore doing business in rmb from now onwards. once again, my sincere thanks for inviting me here today. i congratulate vishnu and his anz bank team for this initiative and i wish you every success as you roll out your new product. shieh shieh, thank you and vinaka vakalevu. bis central bankers ’ speeches

, we had to temper our wishes and settle to issue non - painted coins in the same elegant designs that were earlier selected. i acknowledge that many would be disappointed at not having the painted coin, like we ourselves are. however, i hope what will be unveiled today will be to the liking of all fijians. ladies and gentlemen, an iconic banknote denomination will also be unveiled today, synonymous with the abbreviated code of rugby, a sport that is loved by all fijians, a sport that we excel in and a sport that unites us. you will witness the unveiling of a denomination that would not only be a first for fiji but one, which we have on good authority, will be the only note of its kind in the entire world. not only will this be an iconic banknote denomination, the designs, the orientation and the layout of the banknote are also different. traditionally, we have reserve bank of fiji always had horizontal note designs on both the obverse and reverse. we are now breaking away from this tradition. for the first time, we will have a note which will be vertically orientated, complementing the design and theme chosen on the obverse. the reverse will continue to be horizontally oriented, again complementing the design. this has been carefully thought out, ensuring there is synergy between the obverse and reverse. we fijians love to do things differently in our little paradise. after all, being the rugby 7s olympic champions, things have to be a little bit different now. we may be a small nation but we have the ability to think big and punch above our weight in many of the things we do. so at the bank we wanted to deliver something very unique. i am hopeful we have delivered this to the people of fiji and that this banknote will be loved by all. while the designs on the banknote and coin will speak volumes once unveiled, there are other design elements which are also exceptional. for instance, on the note, different inks have been used to bring out certain special effects. we have used optically variable ink ( ovi ) in a gold colour representing the gold medal, which also contains embossed features in the shape of our logo, the tagaga, for the visually impaired. this effect can be felt by gradually moving one ’ s fingers over it. this embossing gives depth and lends itself perfectly to the depiction of a gold medal. when placed under an ultra violet light source, as