Maltese businesses are facing challenges of unprecedented intensity on several fronts. The grey list has eaten out bits of our competitiveness while government’s attitude of picking and choosing contractors on the eve of its telethons leaves hundreds alienated, fending on their own.
To compound a difficult situation at home, international and local transport costs are putting us further away from the required level playing field when compared to competitors abroad.
One Maltese business owner I met some months ago told me of his companies’ difficulties with transport costs to send his products to Europe. By his own investigation, when he compared his expense with a comparable trip starting from Catania instead of Malta, the costs from Malta were 44% higher.
We all know that e-commerce could help the country overcome its geographical disadvantages, but consider another story - that of an entrepreneurial shopkeeper I met last week. Operating from a shop in Mosta, he also peddles his wares online. Recently he discovered that it actually costs him more to send his product to Birzebbugia or to Nadur, than it costs a giant internet retailer based in Italy to send a similar product to the exact same localities. Economies of scale you would say. But where is the sense in that? How come we are not organized so to allow an affordable platform for local consumers to buy online – from Malta itself?!
Yes, the very nature of an island is isolation and Maltese and Gozitan consumers ultimately bear its brunt. But should not a responsible government provide for the avenues to soften that disadvantage and allow a more level playing field for local enterprise?
Adding to Government’s inertia, our isolation leaves us more exposed to global crises. Covid-19 and China’s buoyant export market resulted in a container shortage in the shipping industry, and drove up the costs ten-fold.
Putin’s senseless invasion of Ukraine, once dubbed "the breadbasket of Europe", risks impacting the production and supply of grains and wheat to Malta. It bears pointing out that Malta imports virtually 100% of its grains and wheat to produce all our bread and feed all the animals supplying our families with meat and other basic food products. There are worrying signals that some European countries are acting protectionist in this regard. Earlier last week I wrote to the European Commission to investigate allegations of restrictions of exports from three European countries to Malta. If proved true, these are serious illegalities which we must counter tooth and nail. We must protect European freedom of movement as a guarantee of our food supply.
Malta’s challenges in export and import markets are wider and systemic. In order to tackle Malta’s isolation head on, the Nationalist Party submitted seven proposals in its electoral programme PN’s Vision 2030 for Malta.
Foremost among them, a national fund of €40 million a year from the very first year in Government. This fund will buttress the local industry and mitigate the effect of isolation. Its size would be adjusted on an annual basis and will rely on a mechanism operated in agreement with the relevant constituted bodies.
The PN is also proposing to invest in a holistic international intermodal hub that connects goods transported in different ways to and from our country, as well as within it. We will invest in physical and virtual infrastructure, to connect the airport and the seaports. The aim is to have an efficient ecosystem between air and sea freight operators. We will also make more extensive use of the current legislation that facilitates the design of Free Zones in our country.
The PN will reduce the costs for operators involved in freight transport between Malta and Gozo, using incentives such as reducing commercial rates between the two islands during times of day with low domestic traffic.
We also aim to encourage investment in accessible digital platforms through Application Programming Interfaces for industries, entrepreneurs and SMEs as well as industry operators (agents, forwarders, etc.) and government bodies such as Customs, VAT Department and the National Statistics Office
We need to weed out any contradicting and overlapping regulations adopted by different ministries and government agencies, and trim any red tape. Another interesting measure is the PN's commitment to bring customs workers in line with the police force and other law enforcement bodies through the benefit of 25 years of service.
To address that Mosta shopkeeper’s plight and the hundreds of other who would want to take the plunge and go into online sales, we also aim to strengthen the local infrastructure so that products purchased online by the Maltese consumer arrive in the most effective and easy way and with the least inconvenience and costs for both the consumer and the seller.
This seven-pronged approach will help us overcome our geographical isolation and translate into a reduction of poverty and a boost in shared prosperity. With the right policies and resources, Malta will handle better its geographical solation, harness the full potential of the Single Market, and connect people to essential services.
All the above is possible if you trust us to be your choice on 26 March. On that day, we are not merely choosing a set of people from another set to govern us, we must choose if we want to address some to the most pressing issues affecting our country and its sectors of society. On Labour’s front you are being offered more of the same, the same continuity which saw us sleep-walking into the grey list and then piling its burdens on Maltese business. That continuity deserves a red card. This is now the time to discontinue what is dysfunctional, build on all the good done with the courage to change for the better.
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