The Office of the Prime Minister said that no one should count on the opposition to be able to interpret statistics, according to statement released replying to the Nationalist Party's allegations that the Economic Survey statistics provided by Minister of Finance Professor Edward Scicluna were unreliable.

The statement pointed towards the opposition's failure to produce evidence that the statistics on wages during the first six months were not the real figure.

This claim, according to the statement, is based on a number small holding which signed their collective agreements during the year.. Since collective agreements are made for a number of years, the sample of a given year can never be compared to the following year because they are samples from completely different businesses.

The OPM pointed to the Economic Survey, page 101 which states:

 "Tables and data presented in this chapter can not be directly compared with those published in previous Economic Surveys. Such direct comparison is hampered by the methodology and procedure for sampling, mainly due to the inclusion of new businesses and the elimination of others. "

 The statement said that in Parliament, Prof. Scicluna explained that when the same publication reports the increase in salaries for businesses in all sectors of the economy , the accepted practice in the economy is to use this factual statistics and not sample used for forecasting.

It went further to say that according to statistics found on page 22 of the Economic Survey, the average nominal wage increased by 3.8% in nominal terms, ie € 14.90 per week, and 3.2% in real terms.