The Malta Developers Association (MDA) has appealed for the property tax incentives to be extended.

In a statement, the MDA said that it is "pleased to note that the timely proposals it made to government last April, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, for the reduction of both stamp duty as well as property transfer tax resulted in a record-breaking number of promises of sales for April, 2021. These results bear witness to how such proposals took promises of sales from an all-time low (in April 2020) to an all-time high (in April 2021) in the span of one year, giving a boost to the economy and keeping it afloat during of the most difficult years to date."

April 2021 saw 1,796 promises of sales being made as opposed to 417 during the same month last year with an aggregate value of property totalling almost €400 million as opposed to €84.5million, the MDA said. "1,430 of these promises of sales were for residential properties, which both goes to show that the demand is an ever-growing one even within this sector and that the amount of available property on the market is still keeping it within the buyers' reach."

The MDA encouraged government to keep this positive trend going by extending the time-frame of the reduction in taxes related to property transfer.