Charles Mangion, acting leader of the Labour Party, laid out the party’s plans for the country during a reception for the diplomatic corps held yesterday.

The country, he said, needs to change its approach on a number of issues that affect the well being of society, and needs to improve its performance on a number of fronts.

Malta’s still doesn’t score well in most of the Lisbon Agenda objectives.

The Labour Party in government will make educational achievement one of the critical success factors for its programme of reforms, which aim to strengthen the economy so that it becomes one of the most competitive countries within the enlarged EU.

“In particular, we will work to reduce the number of young people who leave the educational system without basic qualifications. We will also concentrate on our primary education to ensure that our students emerge from the primary level with a strong command of the basic subjects. We will also encourage more students to study science, engineering, information and communication technology and mathematics – because a modern economy needs to have this educational infrastructure if it is to take off and make progress in a reasonable time,” he said.

The Labour Party’s Information and Communications Technology strategy aims at making Malta an ‘intelligent island’, building on the good things that the country has already achieved in these areas because the promotion of this strategy can best be achieved through a national approach.

While Labour would never abandon the policy of fiscal rectitude, it believed that certain short-term tax reforms were needed to motivate workers to work harder and to stimulate economic growth.

“We particularly want to encourage more women to join the productive workforce since the participation rate of women in the local economy is one of the lowest in the EU,” he said.

In tourism, where performance has been sluggish, he said, young people needed to be trained to be more professional in the way they deal with people who visit. They also need to upgrade the physical infrastructure to ensure that a visit to Malta will always be a pleasant experience.

During 2007 Labour Party leadership defined various regional plans, foremost among them the comprehensive plan for the regeneration of the Grand Harbour area.

While membership of Malta in the eurozone area is a reality, “we believe that this in itself is no guarantee of future economic success.

“With the help of our Labour representatives in the European Parliament, we are striving to identify the opportunities that the EU provides, to enable member states like us to train our workers better, to provide our families with better consumer protection, to encourage enterprise and risk-taking among entrepreneurs, and to more effectively utilise structural funds to continue to upgrade our economy.”

During the past year the MLP also published a policy document on relations with non-EU countries. “Although we are a small country, we believe that there are niches of opportunity where, as members of the EU, we could contribute to better relations between EU and non-EU countries. We are particularly conscious of our Mediterranean vocation. Our location, history, and culture give us an ideal platform to promote Mediterranean-wide initiatives, which will benefit most of the countries that border this sea.”

Labour’s foreign policy goes beyond the traditional diplomatic nature of bilateral relations, he said.

“In the context of our membership in the EU, we are also keen to extend our economic, commercial and cultural relations with large countries like the United States, Russia, and China, and other emerging and fast growing economies.

The traditionally good relations with Arab and Mid Eastern countries will be enhanced under a future Labour government, and the traditional strong ties with Libya – which is Malta’s nearest North African neighbour, will be strengthened under a future Labour administration.

Relations with the Commonwealth countries, especially those inhabited by large Maltese communities, like Australia, Canada and New Zealand will continue to evolve under a new Labour administration.

“We believe that the Commonwealth can play a vital role in bringing about the much-needed prosperity in African countries,” Dr Mangion said.