Stagflation is the combination of two words, stagnation and inflation. This blend is usually attributed to a British Conservative politician Iain Norman Macleod who coined the term in a Parliamentary speech in 1965. This term became more popular in the 1970s when other international crises arose. The meaning of the word stagflation is an economic situation in which inflation and economic stagnation occur simultaneously. And this is what is happening in Malta since we are encountering both, in contrast with other European Union member states including those, who like us, form part of the Euro zone.

For this purpose the Labour Party (PL) organised a conference to discuss inflation and even other themes that subsequently cannot be left out in the course of the discussion. The international crisis, economic growth, or rather the lack of it, and unemployment are current themes that also need to be actively discussed and more importantly measures taken to tackle them. Therefore I believe that this conference was a good opportunity provided by the PL to debate and continue discussing what measures need to be taken in the present circumstances. The major stakeholders were present in this conference, including the government, trade unions and employers. However the government snubbed the conference soon afterwards with a political statement and once again confirmed that to work together was only a political slogan for the general election.

PL leader Joseph Muscat, in his concluding speech, listed 23 proposals. The government, instead of analysing the proposals, just shot them down all together and did not find one proposal worthy of consideration. What a pity!

When are we politicians going to grow-up and act in the national interest first and foremost? Talk is cheap and the Prime Minister knows how to do it, but actions speak louder than words. The PL showed a lot of political maturity when it proposed a number of suggestions on a variety of different issues. However the positive and constructive attitude of the opposition is not corroborated by the government in these circumstances.

Off the radar

A couple of days ago I attended for the fifth Malta Attractiveness Survey by Ernst & Young. It is called a perceptions survey; however I feel that in most occasions, perception matched reality. This survey brings together the views of top executives of 101 foreign-owned companies present in Malta. This survey is very interesting especially when it is compared with the previous editions. It gives a picture how Malta is perceived and perceptions do play an important role in attracting investment.

Two particular comments impressed me most and in my opinion should not be taken lightly by those concerned. The first one is that Malta is off foreign investors' radar and this for us is not good at all. If, as a country, we want to increase the foreign direct investment, Malta needs to be visible and present internationally so as businessmen can consider investing in our country.

The second comment, which also came from a non-Maltese, was that Malta needed a corporate identity. The reason for this statement was that abroad 'no one knows about Malta'. This second statement is in line with the first one since visibility and knowledge or the lack of it impinges on investment.

In the current international crisis we should be more pro-active and have a forward looking policy to support industry. This global crisis is changing the world economy beyond recognition. The post-crisis world economy will be different from the one that existed before it. We need to prepare ourselves for the world economy that will emerge from this crisis. Emergency support for export industries in Malta is absolutely necessary, but it is not sufficient.

What we must do, and we must do it immediately, is to invest intelligently in such a way that existing industries will be able to compete in the new world economy. The usual buzzwords and clichés of the government are useless in this case. What they must do is to listen more closely to industry itself.

Bahrija

Recently Bahrija became very popular. Like Mistra, Bahrija became famous - most of the time for negative reasons. I am not going to write on the merit of the case since I believe that we are going to hear more about it in the coming days.

But now we have a resignation. Victor Scerri resigned from President of the General Council of the Nationalist Party. In my opinion, he was forced or rather led to resign by his fellow colleagues. But even this is beside the point.

With all due respect to Dr Scerri, his resignation did not solve the problem. The problem is wider than the Bahrija permit. In Malta no political responsibility is shouldered by those concerned. Notwithstanding the numerous scandals, alleged corruption and what have you, no Nationalist Minister ever shouldered political responsibility for what happened even if he or she were not directly involved. Malta is a member state of the EU however it takes more than the European flag to be considered as real Europeans.

Carmelo Abela is Deputy Speaker and Labour main spokesperson for industry and foreign investment

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