Attracting, maintaining and nurturing investment, whether local or foreign-originating, is the key to our present and future national success, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said yesterday.
Speaking at a conference on the EU and Enterprise, Dr Gonzi said that EU membership has “significantly bolstered” Malta’s FDI-attraction capability by positioning the country on the international map of top-ranking investment attraction venues.
However, in his speech at the same conference, Labour leader Dr Alfred Sant insisted that it was now clear that in many important areas, the Nationalist government did not prepare the country well for EU membership, mentioning business as one of the sectors which was left fumbling.
Dr Gonzi said the government is doing its best possible effort to bring to a close its fiscal consolidation programme by meeting the established deficit targets and reducing the debt to GDP ratios.
He said that local business was reaping unquantifiable returns from an array of investment decisions recently announced by major international investors, whose decision to choose Malta was also taken in the ambit of Malta’s EU membership scenario.
“It is beyond contention that investment is experiencing unprecedented record highs in the Maltese economy over the past years. Certainly, the SmartCity investment needs no introduction to the general public, much less to the businessmen whom I am sure, have all been monitoring developments in this regard with great interest.”
The PM said that thanks to EU membership, Malta was significantly reinforcing its international standing in terms of investment attractiveness on a global scale. He said that EU membership had injected new added value to Malta’s role within other international networks serving as gateways for forging new business partnerships for the benefit of local business.
“Job creation in this country is not a myth but a reality that is fast picking up and bound to further increase its momentum once other major projects come into stream in the coming months. The much-awaited decision for a state-of-the-art call centre to be opened in Malta by HSBC following the initial announcement at the Commonwealth Business Forum is a vote of confidence in the Maltese investment infrastructure as well as in our ability and capacity to attract high-end investments.”
Dr Gonzi also mentioned the Lisbon Agenda targets, adding that the government has committed itself to increase GDP spending on R & D from 0.3 per cent to 0.75 per cent by 2010.
“In order to attain these targets, it is crucial that Maltese business contributes its part not least because two per cent of the three per cent R&D target stipulated by the Lisbon Agenda should be contributed by the private sector. We are aware of the intrinsic problems hindering Maltese enterprise to resort further to innovation practices. The research scenario in Malta is hampered by a weak science and technology culture among our students and the lack of structured academia-industry linkages.”
Dr Gonzi called on businesses to be more pro-active to continue making EU membership a success story and greatly enhancing opportunities for all.
“Our national priority is to see our country, the smallest EU member state move up the competitiveness league table within the EU-25 by easing the way for business to be set up locally, for SMEs to operate in a regulatory-friendly environment thanks to a red-carpet treatment and for foreign investors to reap the location benefits of Malta’s unique position in the middle of the Mediterranean.”
In his address, Dr Sant said that even on crucial dossiers where the government knew exactly what was going to happen, little was done to ensure that adverse consequences would be adequately buffered.
Focusing on the situation regarding medicines, he said that since Malta became an EU member, business principals have placed the island under the price zoning systems they apply to EU member states with the resulting shift bringing with it higher prices for consumers.
Dr Sant said that Malta could not adopt a one size fits all solution for the country’s introduction of registration systems for drugs, similar to those in Italy and Germany, where consumers count the score in millions.
Speaking on horticulture, Dr Sant said that he has met businessmen who claimed that while they are obligated to observe EU standards in the production and marketing of output, goods were being imported from continental countries in flagrant violation of the same EU standards.
Dr Sant also spoke about Gozo, stating that day trippers were getting a bad deal while in the case of helicopter flights to and from the islands, the EU actually listened and allowed the subsidisation of such flights due to Gozo’s double insularity.
The Labour leader also spoke about the possible liberalisation of fuel imports adding that the government must ensure that if this sounds good in theory, it must not turn out to be a poisoned chalice in practice.
With regard to the Lisbon Agenda, Dr Sant said Malta came at the bottom of the list in respect of female participation in the workforce and the lowest percentage of labour force participation. He said that businesses still did not know what was going on in Brussels with a very poor channel of communication between government ministries, departments and embassies.
“On paper we are introducing lots of EU legislation. In practice, those who are meant to implement such legislation… hardly know which way they are proceeding.”
Dr Sant said that in the financial services sector, Malta seemed to have no strategic vision about the niches where it should be positioned in the future. He said that we should be working hard to ensure that the voice of Maltese and Gozitan business was heard, and given attention to, in Brussels.
“If one stays silent, or just whispers, or just mumbles sotto voce, or pipes up when it is too late, one should not be surprised at not being listened to… in Brussels, Malta or wherever.”