Next year’s budget, to be announced on 15 October, will represent the government’s fist steps toward its wide-ranging vision for 2015 and will be aimed at empowering the country and the Maltese people to achieve their full potential, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi declared yesterday as he closed the Nationalist Party’s second general council of the year yesterday.

But while the country’s future was looking ever-brighter, the road ahead was also rife with challenges, Dr Gonzi warned while appealing for prudence when discussing the country’s finances.

Among the main challenges being faced by the country, he said, were the still escalating international price of oil, as well as new market developments including the rising cost of grains, cereals and dairy products.

“It is important that the Maltese people know that these challenges will not simply go away, but rather that they will continue to grow and that, as such, we need to be prudent,” Dr Gonzi added.

The Nationalist Party, he said, would rise to the challenges before the country, and not resign itself to failure in any respect.

The Nationalist Party yesterday published a voluminous, 336-page full colour document outlining 65 general accomplishments it has achieved for the country, as well as the budgetary measures enacted over the last four years, since it was re-elected in 2004.

The document joins another published on the general council’s first day, Friday, outlining the Nationalist Party’s six-point plan for Malta’s future.

The Nationalist Party holds two general councils each year – one dealing with administrative affairs and another, held this weekend and the last before the next general election, with a political flavour.

Heralding the three-day council that wrapped up yesterday afternoon as an important one for the country, Dr Gonzi observed how the country’s future was seriously discussed in both the party’s workshops as well as in other fora.

Every single decision made by the government was vital to the country’s development and each such decision is being taken seriously and with due consideration to the effect they have on the populace, Dr Gonzi said, adding that the general council had provided an appropriate opportunity in which to stop and reflect on the country’s situation.

To this end, a number of workshops held as part of the general council had roped in the involvement of bodies and individuals such as the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association for the tourism workshop, the Malta Federation of Industry for the workshop on industry, and Malta Stock Exchange and FinanceMalta chairman Joe Zammit Tabona for the workshop on the financial services industry.

The Nationalist Party’s vision for the future hinged on three main points, Dr Gonzi said yesterday. These boiled down to taking the right decisions for the country, fostering greater social justice and developing Malta’s entrepreneurial spirit.

And the prospects of today’s younger generations have never been brighter, Dr Gonzi remarked. 20 years ago, he observed, the youth of Malta hardly knew what a computer was but today’s youth, by means of new technologies, could easily compete with others working in offices from New York to China.

“We are a country brimming with capability and full of skilled people,” Dr Gonzi stressed yesterday. “And, working together, we can succeed.”

The Nationalist Party, he said, “will be judged on what we have accomplished and on what we are going to accomplish for the country”, outlining the party’s six-point vision for 2015, which includes a special focus on Gozo and others in the areas of information and communications technology, financial services, tourism, education, manufacturing and health.

Malta’s children, Dr Gonzi underlined, are the country’s most valuable resource and the three pillars of the party’s plan for posterity – work, education and the environment – were aimed at providing them with a solid future in which they will be able to realise their full potential.

A host of other speakers addressed yesterday’s closing session of the council, including Tourism and Culture Minister Francis Zammit Dimech, who extolled, to a standing ovation, the recent success of the tourism sector.

Finance Minister Parliamentary Secretary Tonio Fenech, meanwhile, confirmed Budget 2008 would see the country’s finances closing the year with a surplus, and that a record of nearly Lm600 million pounds of investment had been made in the country over the last year.

Industry, Investments and Information Technology Minister Austin Gatt, meanwhile, heralded the fact that in some two weeks’ time the first buildings would be demolished at the SmartCity site. The development, he said, would generate in the region of 6,000 jobs.

Malta Enterprise, meanwhile, recently approved four new projects – three of which were Italian concerns in the energy sector which are to lead to another Lm3 million investment in the country.