2000 Dollars Millennium

Fiji issued this commemorative note in January 2000 to mark the millennium — timing that proved deeply awkward. By May, George Speight had led a civilian coup seizing Parliament and taking the Prime Minister hostage, collapsing the Fijian dollar and triggering a run on foreign exchange reserves. Notes from this series were already in circulation when the constitutional crisis hit, giving a purely celebratory issue an unintended historical edge.

Savenaca Narube had only recently become Governor of the Reserve Bank; his signature appears on relatively few note types before later issues superseded this series. Note Printing Australia handled the production in Melbourne, as it did for most Pacific island currency of this period.