Today the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (Ecofin) ratified the Commission’s recommendation that the Excessive Deficit Procedure opened against Malta is lifted, the Department of Information said.

The government welcomed this ratification, with  Deputy Prime Minister Mr Louis Grech seeing this as a strong vote of confidence from the European Union that the current Government’s policies are driving Malta and the Maltese economy to yield positive results. These results were achieved without taking any austerity measures whilst incentivising economic growth.

The deficit is expected to continue declining in 2015 and the following years.  This is because of prudent fiscal management, as well as of higher GDP growth. Malta reduced its deficit to 2.1% of GDP in 2014. According to statistics from the NSO, GDP grew by 4% in the first quarter of this year. Furthermore the Central Bank of Malta sees the Maltese economy growing by 3.6% this year.

The Excessive Deficit procedure comes after good news from Eurostat statistics that shows Malta had the second highest vacancy rate in the first quarter of the year amongst the EU-28, second to Germany, as well as the second highest increase in vacancies after the Czech Republic.

The Government is committed to seek more investment to our country from foreign based investors and creating new markets which benefits the Maltese economy and contributes to the creation of new jobs, the DOI said.