The Cabinet of Ministers spent this summer working on reviews of the investment promotion strategy, plans to improve the quality of tourism, short-term measures to tackle traffic problems, and a new economic migration policy, Prime Minister Robert Abela said at the 2024 EY Conference in Valletta on Wednesday.

Abela said that the EY's annual conference has become an integral part of Malta's business calendar over the years, adding that conference organisers have always chosen very pertinent themes and provided a great forum for productive discussions.

With that in mind, the Prime Minister remarked that he welcomed the opportunity to be able to set out his administration's plans to "envision tomorrow, today". He said that this is a theme very close to his heart, as his period as Prime Minister has "coincided with unprecedented challenges for our society".

He said that Malta has had to "address the effects of a global pandemic, a huge shock in international prices, particularly of energy, and multiple conflicts on our doorstep". He remarked that the country's economy has shown incredible resilience over recent years and emerged much stronger as a result.

Abela said that a prime example of what he means by this is Malta's tourism sector. He commented that many were declaring tourism doomed in the middle of 2020, but that it has instead grown exponentially since. He added that the same can be said of many other sectors, such as manufacturing and remote gaming.

The Prime Minister said that the government's primary focus during the pandemic was to protect the country's productive capacity "so that when times got better, our firms would be able to take advantage and win market share". He remarked that "few can argue our strategy was not successful".

However, he said, "success breeds its own challenges". He said that the policies that underpinned the growth of Malta's economy were designed to get society's unrealised potential working. He continued that, "for instance", less than half of Maltese women were working in 2013. Abela remarked that this situation was a terrible loss of talent "as women tend to have a higher degree of educational achievement than men".

Reflecting on the government's policies, the Prime Minister said that they were very successful and that Malta now has one of the highest employment rates in Europe. He continued that the government created a very attractive business environment to create enough jobs for all the persons who were being attracted to the country's labour market. He said that as a result of this, Malta consistently grew faster than the rest of Europe "and our GDP per capita is now 5% higher than the EU average". He added that Malta's GDP per capita was 13% below average a decade earlier.

"With full employment and GDP convergence achieved, we can now shift gear," Abela commented. He said that he sees three major changes over the next three years.

The first change, he said, is that the government's investment promotion strategy will start to focus on shifting Malta's position up the global production value chain. He said that instead of looking at how much a project will create jobs and maximising the number of projects approved, "our agencies will focus on the types of jobs created and on the value-added properties of a project".

Continuing to the second change, Abela said that the government's employment policy, while still retaining its "make-work-pay structure", will shift from focusing on creating jobs to focusing on creating competencies. He added that government support needs to target training, promote lifelong learning, and education beyond formal education.

He said that the third change is that the country's economic targets need to shift from a focus on outperforming Europe in terms of economic growth to outperforming Europe in terms of the digital and green transition. "Our future success requires us to move forward very decisively on these two fronts, or else what we achieved will not amount to much in future decades."

The Prime Minister said that "the thousands of persons who have joined our workforce need to acquire the skills required for our country to be a digital and green leader". He continued that "our firms need to be at the forefront of the new sectors that are evolving and need to be early adopters of new technologies".

Abela remarked that this may seem like a tall order, particularly as many other countries presently have a "clear advantage over us", but he said that "we have been there before". He said that in 2012, Germany had an employment rate a fifth higher than Malta, but that our employment rate was year was higher than Germany's. "Implementing the right policies can achieve much," he commented.

He said that over the next months, the Cabinet will be going over several important strategy documents. He said that the government has already taken steps during the past months that give an indication of the changes that the Cabinet will be spearheading. He referred to the first results of the new tourism skills pass as an example, and stated that results indicate that "as many as half of potential employees in the sector are not making the grade".

He also referred to new minimum requirements introduced in July "for buildings to improve their energy performance and which will require construction firms to adopt very different working methods". He continued that significant progress has also been made on the studies that will set out where international offers for offshore wind farms will be invited. He said that more will be said about this new strategic direction during the Budget discussions.

"Given the significance of these changes, our intention is to hold comprehensive discussions with all stakeholders before implementing change... Last week, during our meeting with the social partners, we embarked on an exciting new journey... The beginning of a process that will define Malta's Vision for 2050."

He said that this vision is not just about economic growth, but that "it goes far beyond that". He continued that Malta's Vision for 2050 will chart the country's strategic path for the coming decades by taking a holistic approach with focuses on improving the quality of life for all. He added that key milestones will be set to guide progress, with significant targets for 2035.