Most chief executives of leading Fijian businesses expect their companies to be more profitable in 2026/7, and not one of them says they will shed staff. That is the headline finding of the inaugural Fiji 100 CEO Survey, conducted by Business Advantage International and reported by FBC News on 1 October 2026.
One caveat belongs at the top, before the percentages do their work. The published findings carry no sample size, no fieldwork dates and no description of how the Fiji 100 list of companies was assembled, and no methodology statement from Business Advantage International accompanied the figures reported by FBC News. The numbers below are precise; the base they are drawn from is not yet public.
Key facts
- This is the first edition of the Fiji 100 CEO Survey. Business Advantage International conducted and compiled the research; the company publishes business intelligence on Pacific economies and runs a long-standing equivalent survey of chief executives in Papua New Guinea.
- Respondents were the chief executives of leading Fijian businesses, according to FBC News.
- They were asked about expected profits, capital expenditure and recruitment for 2026/7 against 2025/6, and were asked to rank the key impediments facing their businesses.
- Profits: 57 per cent expect to beat 2025/6, 22 per cent expect about the same, 21 per cent expect less.
- Recruitment: 43 per cent expect to increase head count, 57 per cent expect to hold current staffing levels, and no respondent reported plans to cut.
- Capital expenditure: 48 per cent forecast an increase, 30 per cent about the same, 22 per cent a decrease. The largest single group — 35 per cent — forecast a “substantial” increase.
- Fuel price and availability emerged as the leading impediment named by the businesses.
What the numbers add up to
Read together rather than one question at a time, the published percentages say more than any single figure does. On Fiji News’s arithmetic, each of the three answer sets closes at 100 per cent, which suggests every respondent answered every question and that there is no hidden “don’t know” group absorbing uncertainty.
Two patterns stand out. The first is the gap between profit and payroll: 57 per cent expect to earn more, but only 43 per cent expect to employ more. At least 14 percentage points’ worth of respondents, therefore, expect a better year without adding a single person — a margin, pricing or productivity story rather than an expansion story. The second is inside the capital expenditure answer. If 48 per cent expect to spend more and 35 per cent of those describe the increase as substantial, then only about 13 per cent are planning a modest lift. The investment intentions in this survey are concentrated, not broadly spread.
That matters because the survey adds a rare private-sector reading to a thin run of published Fiji economy indicators. Fiji has had no regular, publicly released chief-executive confidence index of this kind, which is why a first edition is worth recording even with its methodological gaps.
Profits: a clear majority expect improvement
On the profit question, FBC News reports that 57 per cent of chief executives expect their 2026/7 result to exceed 2025/6, while 22 per cent expect broadly flat profits and 21 per cent expect a weaker year. Taken together, that is close to four in five expecting profits to rise or hold.
No sector, company-size or location breakdown was published, so the figures cannot be used to identify which industries are carrying the optimism — tourism, construction, retail, finance or anything else.
Recruitment: nobody is forecasting cuts
Respondents were asked to indicate their recruitment intentions for 2026/7 compared with 2025/6. FBC News reports that 43 per cent expect to increase head count and 57 per cent expect to maintain current staffing levels. Those two figures account for the entire sample, which is the clearest labour-market signal in the survey: among the chief executives who answered, the floor under employment is intact.
What the published answers cannot tell jobseekers is scale. There is no estimate of how many positions the hiring intentions represent, no indication of occupations or skill levels, and no split between Suva, Lautoka, the Western Division or the outer islands. “Increase head count” covers both a single new hire and a hundred of them.
Capital spending: a third flag a substantial lift
Capital expenditure — spending on buildings, plant, vehicles and equipment rather than day-to-day running costs — is the third pillar of the survey, and the one most often treated as a forward indicator of hiring. FBC News reports that 48 per cent of chief executives forecast an increase, 30 per cent expect similar spending to 2025/6 and 22 per cent expect to spend less, with 35 per cent — the largest single group — describing their planned increase as “substantial”.
The companies behind that spending are not named, and the survey as reported does not say what the money is earmarked for. Capital intentions and capital commitments are also different things: a survey answer in October is not a contract signed.
Fuel tops the list of impediments
Asked to rank the key impediments facing their business, the chief executives put fuel price and availability first, according to FBC News, which called the result understandable. Notably, that is a cost-side answer rather than a demand-side one: fuel outranked whatever else was on the list, which the report does not reproduce, and no share of respondents was given for any individual impediment.
Fuel’s weight on Fijian balance sheets is documented beyond this survey. Fiji News has previously reported that fuel already accounts for 52 per cent of Energy Fiji Limited’s revenue, squeezing the national utility’s shift towards renewables. Because electricity tariffs and freight both carry that cost through to other businesses, a fuel line item sits inside almost every Fijian cost base — which is the most plausible reason it ranked where it did. The survey itself draws no such link; it records only how the chief executives ranked the issue for their own operations.
What is still missing from the published findings
Several details that would normally frame a survey of this kind have not been released. Absent are the number of chief executives who took part, the dates of the fieldwork, the criteria used to build the Fiji 100 list, the response rate and the full impediments ranking. Nor has any reaction been published — no comment from the Ministry of Finance, Strategic Planning, National Development and Statistics, the Fiji Commerce and Employers Federation, the Fiji Trades Union Congress or the Reserve Bank of Fiji, whose own forecasting would be the natural test of whether these expectations are realistic.
Fiji News is treating the survey as a single-source report for now: every figure in this article traces back to the FBC News account of research by Business Advantage International, and none of it has been independently verified against a primary release. That is worth stating plainly rather than burying, because a first-edition confidence survey with an undisclosed sample is a signal, not a measurement.
Related context
Two threads in recent Fiji News coverage sit alongside the survey without forming part of it. Investment appetite is visible elsewhere in the resources sector, including the gold exploration results at Wainikoro; and for Fijians abroad, confidence at home is only half the household equation, with Fijians in Australia tracking interest rate decisions that shape mortgage and remittance budgets. Neither is referenced in the Fiji 100 CEO Survey.
Fiji News will update this report if Business Advantage International publishes its methodology and the full impediments ranking, or if government, employer bodies or unions respond to the findings.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many of the CEOs surveyed expect profits to fall?
According to FBC News, 21 per cent of the chief executives surveyed expect profits in 2026/7 to be lower than in 2025/6. That is the smallest of the three groups in the profit question, and the three answers together account for the whole sample.
Did any CEO say they would cut staff numbers?
No. FBC News reports that none of the chief executives surveyed said they would reduce personnel in 2026/7. The reported answers split 43 per cent adding staff and 57 per cent holding head count steady, with nothing left over for cuts.
Are any businesses planning to spend less on capital works?
Yes. FBC News reports that 22 per cent of the chief executives flagged lower capital expenditure in 2026/7, while 30 per cent said capital spending would be around the same as in 2025/6 and 48 per cent expected an increase.
Who conducted the Fiji 100 CEO Survey?
Business Advantage International, the publisher credited by FBC News with conducting and compiling the research. The company produces business intelligence on Pacific economies and runs a long-established equivalent survey of chief executives in Papua New Guinea. The Fiji edition is reported as the first of its kind.
How many chief executives took part, and when?
That has not been made public. The FBC News report does not state the sample size, the fieldwork dates or how the Fiji 100 list of companies was drawn up, and no methodology statement from Business Advantage International accompanied the figures. Readers should treat the percentages as the full extent of what is on the record.
What period does the Fiji 100 CEO Survey cover?
The survey asked chief executives about their expectations for the 2026/7 financial year, measured against 2025/6, according to FBC News. The profit, capital expenditure and recruitment questions were all framed as a comparison between those two years.
