The government is planning to extend the wage supplement to private enterprise beyond March, Prime Minister Robert Abela said today.
Answering a question by The Malta Independent, Abela said it would not make sense to stop the assistance now that “we are seeing light at the end of the tunnel”.
Abela said that Finance Minister Clyde Caruana is leading discussions on how this will be extended further.
The government has been supporting private enterprises since the start of the pandemic namely through a scheme which pays a certain amount of the salaries of workers of businesses which were hardest hit by the pandemic.
The current wage supplement scheme, which was amended at the beginning of this year to put more emphasis on supporting business which lost swathes of revenue, expires at the end of March.
Economy Minister Silvio Schembri had told The Malta Independent on Sunday in an interview last month that the government envisaged the way forward from the end of March to be through measures which encourage growth not which minimise costs. He had said though that if the wage supplement was still seen to be necessary when the time comes, then it would be extended.
Answering another question from this newsroom, the PM added that he is convinced that by May, Malta will have made great strides forward in its economic recovery.
He said that the setting of targets are not words just thrown up into the air, but they are concrete action points which the government is determined to see through. He noted that Malta tops the charts for its vaccination programme with the three already approved vaccines, and that a fourth vaccine is expected to be available from March as well.
He added that this strong vaccination programme combined with health measures which are "cautious" for March - and here he pointed out that they would not take decisions which are not prudent for March - will mean that the country will arrive at its targets by May.