The investors who are turning to Malta to invest in businesses here in various fields, including the Information and Communication Technology sector, are doing so because they believe in Malta and its economy, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said yesterday.
Speaking on Radio 101, hours before leaving Malta for a visit to Australia, Prime Minister Gonzi said these investors know and are seeing Malta’s potential and believe in the capabilities of the Maltese who they will be employing.
“People are investing in Malta because they believe in the country and its economy. Even the European Union praised Malta’s efforts and policies in this regard,” he said proudly.
Referring to last week’s visit to Hetronic Malta, which celebrated its 25th anniversary since it was set up in Malta, Dr Gonzi said that since 2004 – when Malta became a European Union member state – the company’s turnover increased drastically.
He also spoke about GMT Communications Partners which last Thursday signed the final document for the takeover of Melita Cable, investing EUR167 million. This shows that people believed in Malta and see a lot of potential here, he said. He added that in the latter case, the foreign investors believed so much in the capabilities of the Maltese, that they wanted the Gasan Group to retain minority shareholding.
“Malta is at the forefront in the information and communication technology and this is why the government is investing in the Malta College for Arts, Science and Technology, with more investment in courses in the ICT sector. People do not have to be extremely intelligent and with a long list of qualifications in order to study ICT. There are some courses for which all you need is a school-leaving certificate because people will be provided with the necessary training,” Dr Gonzi said.
Turning to unemployment, Dr Gonzi said that the unemployment levels reached the lowest levels in 12 years, but this does not mean that the problems of unemployment have been solved. There are still people who lack a job and these need to be helped to look for another job, he said.
He said the PN has a track record and has always shown that is able to create employment opportunities. Last week, the government issued the first call for expression of interest for projects funded by the EUR855 million which the government managed to get from the European Union and an amount of this will be earmarked for the creation of employment opportunities for everyone, even those who are over 40 years of age, he said.
Dr Gonzi also spoke about the memorandum of understanding on the “pharmacy of your choice” initiative following discussions with the Chamber of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises, the Chamber of Pharmacists and other stakeholders.
“We managed to implement another promise but how is this going to affect Maltese families? During house visits, I spoke to many people who spoke about the difficulty of collecting pills and medicine that they needed. This will simplify matters,” he said.
In a few weeks, he explained, the government will be launching the four-month pilot project in the area of Mosta which also covers St Paul’s Bay and the localities around Mosta. Once it would have been fine-tuned, the initiative will be extrapolated to all Malta and Gozo by the beginning of 2008.
He said this will continue to improve the health sector in which the government has invested so much. “In the last few years, we invested a lot of money in the new Mater Dei Hospital, at St Vincent de Paul, and we are increasing the size of Zammit Clapp. The next step is to improve the health service in the community,” he said.
On the pre-budget document published by the government, Dr Gonzi said this contains several measures placing the Maltese family at the forefront.