The use of price controls is widespread across developing economies, including controls on basic food items, utility services and key imported commodities. Price control has been in Fiji for nearly 50 years. It is used as a tool for social policy and this can dampen investment and growth but can also incur heavy fiscal burdens. Price controls are efficient when used with competition law and policy. A new model of competition is presented to promote effective investment and competition together linking its outputs to consumer protection. Two institutions merged in the year 2010, namely the Prices and Incomes Board (PIB) and Commerce Commission (CC) into a newly formed Commission named as Fijian Commerce Commission (FCC).
The collected data so far from the year 2010-2016 reveals that business traders are violating the price control legislation in terms of overcharging consumers and using misleading conduct to hide prices. The trend on average has decreased by 57% in 2016. The other variable of interest was cyclone WINSTON data in the year 2016, out of 680 inspections that were done, 81.1% of business traders were non-compliant. 34.5% of business traders were fined on the spot and through complaints respectively
