The Prime Minister referred to the Nationalist Party’s achievements in government when he met representatives of the GRTU, Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprises, in a consultation exercise for the formulation of the electoral manifesto.

He said these achievements include economic expansion over the past year, the effective control of the deficit to the levels demanded by the European Union, and the introduction of the single currency, in which the GRTU, businesses and shopowners had cooperated fully.

Lawrence Gonzi said the Labour Party had been unjustly critical of the business sector, accusing them of hiking up prices and fleecing consumers.

GRTU president Paul Abela said that the PN had over the years made Malta modern. It had kept its word at many levels and did what was necessary to bring Malta to where it was today. The PN had brought stability, democracy and trade and intellectual freedom.

Many reforms still remained to be carried out to make the country more competitive and efficient, he added.

Dr Gonzi also met representatives of the Chamber of Commerce, when he referred to Malta’s higher volumes of trade, higher investments, sharper competitiveness, the introduction of the euro and Malta’s success in the EU. The success had been achieved thanks to the cooperation of the partners in the trade sectors.

Chamber president Tancred Tabone agreed with the Prime Minister that due to the successes being recorded they were seeing a shortage of employees and professional people in various sectors. Mr Tabone said the chamber’s proposals urged a more competitive, stronger and efficient economy, and it was satisfied with the country’s healthy financial situation. The public holidays initiative – which no longer allowed weekend public holidays to be added to employees’ leave entitlement – had been very important, Mr Tabone said, and expressed himself at odds with the Labour Party by saying that the initiative had contributed to making Malta more competitive.

Another meeting the Prime Minister had was with representatives of the Malta Union of Teachers, when another note of disagreement with the Labour Party was recorded, with MUT president John Bencini expressing himself against the MLP’s proposal of a reception class between kinder level and primary education. It would create a problem for children, Mr Bencini said.

The proposal, he added, had not been thought out and planned, so much so that it has been concluded that there were not in fact enough teachers to conduct this reception class.

Dr Gonzi said they should help those children who needed to be helped without negatively effecting those who did not need any help.

The Prime Minister also referred to the tourism industry’s performance at a meeting with the Federation of English Language Teaching Organisations of Malta, FELTOM, saying Malta had registered a 10.7 per cent increase in the number of visiting tourists. Tourism increases were very important for the English language teaching schools, which gave a good service in their sector, Dr Gonzi said.

He added they might have a problem of accommodation in the sector, because of the increase in visitors.

FELTOM president Andrew Mangion said expansion in the English language teaching sector had been strong and consistent, which was due to the accommodation services, air connections and the professional teaching services. They had to work more to coordinate the host families, who were giving a good service