The five years ahead promise to be years of opportunities and challenges for the entire country. It is up to each and every one of us to know how best to tap those opportunities and face the challenges ahead.

The SmartCity project that from its inception is growing exponentially, the foreign direct investment at encouraging levels, new projects including the ambitious ones for the Grand Harbour Area, Marsamxetto, and for the entrance to our capital city, the European Union funding and a sense of entrepreneurship made easier through reforms that the government will put in place are symptoms of what one can expect on a larger scale.

The other week I had occasion to listen to a speech by the outgoing CEO of HSBC wherein he pointed out that Malta has over the past 10 years gone through a massive transformation. What some might have thought would not work well, he added, such as holding the CHOGM event, or joining the European Union as well as adopting euro as our currency, worked out with flying colours for the entire nation. We just need to look back at Malta 10 or even less years ago and understand the changes that we have been through.

And now it’s time for more. It’s no bed of roses for the government or for the country. The soaring price of oil, and the tremendous hike in the price of cereals are exerting pressure on the economies of countries worldwide and we cannot expect not to feel the pinch. The only way to handle it is through being wise, having a sense of national unity, fighting inefficiency and bureaucracy, and having the courage to take all the decisions that are necessary to ensure further growth while maintaining a social conscience to guarantee that there aren’t pockets within the national family that are lagging behind.

That brings to mind the appeal by the governor of the Central Bank. He said that we should be making another attempt at striking a social pact in the Malta Council for Social and Economic Development. The deal would guarantee stability and boost productivity. Will a sense of national maturity from all social partners prevail this time round? It’s a question of looking ahead rather than analysing what went wrong last time. Time will tell whether a social pact can be achieved at this stage, but the whole nation welcomes the appeal extended by the Central Bank Governor.

Record profits

The profits achieved by Malta International Airport over last year is one more symptom of the fact that 2007 was a record year for tourism – best ever for number of arrivals, bed nights as well as for economic performance.

MIA experienced its highest turnover ever and registered a record net profit. Passenger movements increased by 10.4 per cent, which is four per cent higher than the European average growth. Seat capacity increased by 14.3 per cent and while the impact of low cost carriers was there for all to enjoy and fathom, perhaps the best news of all was that the national airline Air Malta carried over 55 per cent of our traffic and had an increase of 16,000 passenger movements. It makes the point that when I was lobbying for the introduction of low cost carriers, we could do it in such a way as to gain from it while taking well into consideration the needs and interests of our national carrier.

The country can go for further growth in tourism which is not only the strongest segment of our economy but also the one that has most ripple effects in the sense that the good feel factor permeates to the rest of the population rather than remain confined to any one group.

There will be difficult decisions to make. There will be pressures for more routes in favour of low cost players. Agreements reached in the beginning of this year to ensure that there would be more than one major player on our scene have ensured that as the proverbial expression goes, we do not place all our eggs in one basket. The situation however does remain a volatile one and calls for a constant ‘hands on deck’ approach as well as for the appropriate flexibility and determination to keep making it happen in the national interest.

Francis Zammit Dimech is a Nationalist MP