Resources Minister George Pullicino inaugurated the final-year engineering projects exhibition at the University of Malta and said that the creation of jobs needed innovation to attract new industries and incentives for local industry to expand.

The government, he said, is also helping with creating green jobs by investing European funds in technological plants, which needed engineers, to treat liquid and solid wastes.

The number of students who were taking engineering courses had over these last years gone up from eight to 12%, with the faculty now having 400 students. More students were also continuing post-graduate studies, thanks to the stipends reform of 2005 and the scholarships under the STEPS and MGSS schemes.