The minister, who is accompanied by parliamentary secretary for SMEs and the Self-Employed Edwin Vassallo, together with other EU ministers, the commissioners responsible for enterprise, internal market and competition respectively, and various international business leaders discussed the challenges facing European industry, ranging from the cheap production costs of the lower-cost economies of the Far East and the continuing productivity gap with the US.
Topics for discussion included an assessment by ministers of the impact of job competition and lower-cost economy investments coming from outside Europe, notably India and China, on European industry and productivity. Ministers also reviewed strategies to counter the continuing brain-drain to the US of EU-
educated scientists and researchers.
Addressing the council, Mr Galea referred to de-industrialisation as one of the most challenging situations confronting Europe and said that “Malta believes that the issue of de-industrialisation is more of a concept involving the managing and the driving of economic and structural reform, than a direct problem in its own right.”
De-industrialisation very often involves a structural change in the economy whereby the long-term pattern of demand shifts away from the manufacturing sector and into the services sector.
“It is vital that we identify areas through which labour skills can be transformed from those used in the traditional manufacturing sector into those required by services, in order to enhance Malta’s competitiveness. The process of de-industrialisation is therefore viewed as essentially a problem of inadequacy of skills, which Malta is focusing to address by concentrating on better vocational training and lifelong learning programmes,” stressed Mr Galea.
“Malta also believes that in a European dimension, in a society of ever-increasing global competition, the European capacity for a knowledge-based growth should be further expanded and complemented by an acceleration and mutual development of information technology usage across the Union,” he concluded.
The keynote speakers at the opening working session of the council included the chairman and Hewlett-Packard Chairman and Chief Executive Carly Fiorna, who dwelt on Europe’s need to Stay Competitive in a Global Market, GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, Belgium’s President, Saab, Sweden’s former chairman and Infineon Technologies, Germany’s chairman.
“Europe is not solely at the mercy of competition from lower-cost locations. It remains very much the master of its own destiny. European standards of living will be determined by efforts to raise productivity growth within the continent. None of the important constraints on European economic and social policy come from abroad,” the EU council of ministers concluded after the lengthy discussions.
Referring to the 10-year plan agreed at the Lisbon Summit in 2000, aimed at making Europe the most competitive economy in the world, the ministers noted that the Lisbon agenda calls for an increase in the number of research scientists working within the EU, and an increase in overall research and development funding.