The Labour Party’s plan for local industry focuses on “how things should be done”and not on “what needs to be done”, Labour leader Alfred Sant said yesterday.
Dr Sant told a delegation from the Federation of Industry (FOI) that a Labour government would work hand in hand with the private sector to regenerate local industry.
This is why, Dr Sant added, the Labour Party wanted to appoint a committee to provide specialist advice to long-standing and successful companies. He said this committee would meet monthly and be chaired by the Prime Minister himself and the minister responsible for industry.
Dr Sant said the model would be that used by Labour during the period 1996 to 1998, whereby decisions were taken by stakeholders and then these were implemented by the government.
He reiterated the need for a minimum four per cent economic growth a year and emphasised the importance of tourism for the local economy.
The MLP quoted FOI president Adrian Bajada as saying that the federation was particularly interested in those plans that addressed weak areas of the economy and that focuses on boosting Malta’s competitiveness in line with the Lisbon agenda.
With regard to Labour’s draft plan, the FOI president expected the Labour Party to come up with a long-term strategy that identified measures that could be used to achieve its targets.
Mr Bajada told Dr Sant that the FOI was preparing an industrial policy document and he invited the Labour Party to give its views on the matter.
Meanwhile, in a statement, FOI president Adrian Bajada said that while it appreciated the Malta Labour Party’s understanding of the situation which industry is facing today, it expected the action plan to be more forward looking with a clear and tangible long-term strategy to address issues like human resource supply, a culture for innovation and niche-hunting, industry-academia links and incentives to attract FDIs.
The Federation said it believes that the final document should focus more on new economy drivers and on the resources required to this end.
“The document mentions the need for our industry to move to higher value-added, innovative and creative levels so as to become and remain competitive. Another aspect which is mentioned is the need for specialization and for niche manufacturing. However, the document does not identify the mechanisms to reach these objectives,” the federation added.
In this respect, the FOI said it had taken a pro-active stand and was currently spearheading a consultation process which will lead to an integrated Industrial Policy Document.
The FOI delegation invited the Malta Labour Party to “join us in this exercise and participate by providing its views. Malta needs one industrial vision, free from any partisan positioning, which only serve to create unnecessary waste of time and energy for all”.
Mr Bajada said the FOI would like to see plans to address Malta’s negative performance in the Lisbon Agenda indicators or in the Competitiveness Index as published by the World Economic Forum.
“As a general line of thought, the document does not provide a plan for the creation of new jobs and to attract high value-added foreign investments. Neither does it cater for the support of indigenous SMEs which are being hit hard by international competitiveness. It speaks about a number of task forces and schemes which should provide training and temporary work for redundant workers, and about identifying those government-induced measures which are rendering the industry uncompetitive. We believe that while such measures are important and will alleviate some of the immediate predicaments, they alone will not be enough to undertake the serious threats that our industry will face in the medium and long term,” the FOI president said.