Since Malta started recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic, the PN has been trying to freeze the economy, Prime Minister Robert Abela said during a political event on Tuesday.

Whilst delivering a speech in Mosta, Abela explained how the economy remains the basis for everything, including if the government wants to deliver more social measures.

Abela said that Malta saw 9.4% GDP growth. This, he said, is the best confirmation possible, showing that the Labour's plan for the future is doable as it already has the political and economic credibility.

He spoke of how the government has been working to overcome challenges presented by the FATF. He added that by implementing all the positive needed changes, Malta had passed the Moneyval test.

Abela said that the PN was joyous when the FATF had made its decision about Malta (that the country was to be greylisted), and the PN also started scaremongering, saying that the financial services sector together with the gaming sector were going to collapse. In the months that followed the opposite happened, as Malta attracted more direct investment, leading to more financial and gaming companies opening, he said.

He added that the government has strengthened investment in every sector, and said that some of these sectors are the same as ones the PN had said it would create.

"Whilst the PN claimed that last year we did not create a single economic niche, investment grew by 20%" Abela said.

He said that the European commission said that Maltese businesses are the most optimistic amongst all European member states, and that is why regardless of how hard the PN tries to say otherwise, "the nation trusts itself".

Abela said that during the pandemic, when experts were saying that the country needed around 4 years to recover economically, he told his team to continue working. Subsequently, the European commission together with credit agencies gave better projections and said that by mid-2022, Malta would be in a better economic position."

Abela said that he believes that what Malta will achieve in the future is nothing compared to what it has achieved till now.