It’s good as a joke and we all need to joke given the ratcheting electoral fever. But this poster of the prime minister wearing a Brazil shirt and with O on his back is neither doing good to the Labour Party nor to Malta.

It’s good as a joke, as a wry comment, on yet another slip-up by Dr Gonzi in his televised confrontation with Dr Muscat on Xarabank

Dr Gonzi, we may say, was artfully drawn in by Dr Muscat as an experienced angler gets his fish. First Dr Gonzi was led to a knee-jerk reaction to a Dr Muscat question to say that of course the company from Brazil had indeed come to Malta and opened here.

Then followed what surely must be classified as the worst of nightmares, as the media tried to get any information about this Brazilian company and nobody could be found to have any information.

It was only after days of anguish that the government started to issue information as if they were state secrets and we then learned this Brazilian company about which much was trumpeted last year was in actual fact a small office in Malta and then, worse and worse in terms of news management, that it was actually closing down those same days.

That was of course another occasion for a tsunami of quips and guffaws. Hence the bill-board, though in our opinion it does not explain itself well and does not carry the PL message except in derision. Which is not to say the derision is not earned.

At the same time, however, far more care must be exercised by all, including and especially the Labour Party.

Over the past years, the trend in Foreign Direct Investment has shifted from big companies, employing hundreds, mostly in the manufacturing sector, to the services sector and specifically to the financial services sector.

We did have, these past years, inflows of big companies employing hundreds. One can mention Lufthansa Technic, the pharmaceutical industries and the like.

But alongside them, we have also had a huge influx of small companies, mostly in the back-office sector, in the online gaming sector, and in financial services in general.

It is not good policy, especially for a party that expects to be in government in a few weeks’ time, to send a message that maybe such investments are not needed. Labour was very right when it rose in protest when Minister Austin Gatt said the time for manufacturing is over. It is true that economies of scale work in favour of big countries such as China as a manufacturing base for the world, but it is also true that fortunately we still have some very good manufacturing companies which are holding their own in very stiff international competition.

Malta is a small country and everyone is welcome. We must not send anybody away, neither in manufacturing nor in financial services.

The Brazilian company’s structure is fairly easy to understand. These companies registered in Malta are subsidiaries of large international operations. The Malta base has a small structure of support staff, rents offices or uses a professional office for its purposes.

Yet these companies, despite being “small” in terms of staff numbers, use extensive ancillary services of lawyers, accountants, tax consultants, hotels, restaurants, real estate rental, car rental, and above all, they leave a significant amount of tax revenue in Malta because they pay their taxes here.

This is the new economy we have achieved and which we are trying to develop further: a knowledge-based economy. We should all be thankful that this government and previous governments had the foresight to invest in education, providing the industry with highly qualified accountants, accounts technicians through MCAST, and IT professionals, and yet still we do not have enough of these to service all our clients.

The last thing we need, and the last thing that the Labour Party needs, is to scare these people away. Labour always says it supports the financial services sector and that foreign investors have nothing to fear from a change of government. But it surely must know that the people out there, the investors, are very interested in what is going on and very interested to know if a change of government could mean a change of plans for them.

Today’s economy does not need much to shift elsewhere. Where before a company had to close down its factories, relocate its machines, terminate its employees, all it needs to do now is to just close down laptops and head for the airport.

As long as this Brazilian jape is a joke, it is OK, but Labour must reinforce its public commitment to investors in all sectors in Malta, especially those in the flighty financial services.