Stephen Howes
The sugar museum in Mauritius (Brian Scott/Picture: SUPPLIED
By STEPHEN HOWES, SHERMAN SURANDIRAN
Both Mauritius and Fiji are remotely located islands situated far from global business centres, both developed as sugar plantation economies, but their economies have taken drastically different paths over the past half a century.
Last year the World Bank reclassified Mauritius as a high-income country. Its 2019 income (GNI per capita) for the first time exceeded the $US12,535 ($F25,374) threshold for that category.
Fiji, meanwhile, continues to be classified as an upper-middle-income economy, with its 2019 GNI per capita of $US5800 ($F11,740) at just 46 per cent of the high-income threshold.