Competitiveness and Communications Minister Censu Galea, addressing the hearing organised by the single market observatory of the European Economic and Social Committee, said Malta has been enhancing its competitive advantages in recent years through implementation of its National Reform Programme (NRP).

The programme was launched in 2005 and serves as a blueprint for the country’s direction over the three-year period up to 2008. It is one of the government’s key strategic documents through which the country’s socio-economic development challenges will be addressed, while it is also primarily intended to address Malta’s national competitiveness in terms of the relaunched Lisbon Strategy.

In recent years Malta has enhanced its comparative advantages in a number of areas, including an increased computer literate population, an efficient and integrated financial services sector, low unemployment, and effective social inclusion. On the other hand, a comparative analysis with the EU27 Member States reveals that there are areas where Malta still needs to perform better. This overriding goal of improving the quality of life of all is in fact being tackled in the government’s NRP programme of activity.

There are five strategic themes that are the pillars of the NRP and on which Malta is concentrating its efforts to improve its state of play, he said. These were Sustainability of public finances, in which the government is committed to remove barriers to economic growth.

Another theme was competitiveness. “Having put in place a sustainable macroeconomic environment, we have laid the foundation for a national strategy for other national competitiveness improvement measures. The government’s role in the economy is being focused on the regulatory aspect, at the same time consistently easing its active participation in economic activities.

Employment was another theme, with the Lisbon Strategy clearly placing job creation and economic growth in all its Member States as the keystone of its objectives.

The fourth theme was education and training. Mr Galea said that “given the lack of natural resources, the level and standard of education play a crucial role in the Maltese economy as the collective human capital is our major resource. The NRP subscribes to the government’s strategy in developing a highly-skilled workforce by providing for lifelong education for all to improve the country’s competitive edge and by addressing the nation’s competence needs.

The last theme was the environment, included as one of the pillars of the NRP. It initially raised a few eyebrows, but it was cited by the European Commission as very innovative. The fact that Malta is very densely populated, and that the Maltese economy is heavily dependent on tourism, renders the environment more important for Malta.