There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that, in terms of economic growth, Malta is doing well.

Indeed just last week, S&P Global Ratings affirmed its 'A-/A-2' long- and short-term sovereign credit ratings on Malta, saying that the outlook remains stable.

This is, of course, good news, but growing the economy is not enough, the lives of all residents need to improve.

The Prime Minister, Robert Abela, a few weeks ago said that the discussion should no longer remain focused just on economic growth, but must be on economic development. While economic growth focuses on growth of the GDP, economic development, he said, focuses more on how that economic growth reflects on improving peoples' quality of life. In fact, the term ‘quality of life’ has become a sort of buzzword for the government in recent weeks.

But to achieve real improvement in quality of life for the citizens of this country, real change will be needed.

The shift in economic model will not come easy. The government has finally come to terms with the need to grow the economy by attracting businesses that provide high quality jobs, but are not labour intensive. This, after for years it promoted an economy that was based on the need for more and more workers. It did this, without planning ahead to cater for such a population increase. The result of not planning ahead is there for all to see - shoebox apartments being built, a property market that has priced out youths, traffic everywhere, despite the infrastructure projects the government undertook.

Had it planned ahead better, the country would have been better prepared for such a population increase. Perhaps, for instance, infrastructure projects could have catered for designated bus lanes to ensure public transport is not stuck in traffic, or a trackless tram system. Perhaps planning policies could have been created to ensure a better design of urban areas, with more green spaces. But the government did not plan ahead, and here we are.

This is not to say that Malta doesn’t need to attract workers from abroad. Far from it. One in five people in Malta are aged 65 or older and by 2050, that number will rise to one in three, according to estimates by the United Nation's population unit. This shows, concretely, that Malta needs to continue attracting foreign workers. But at the same time, the sectors that Malta focuses its economic growth on need to be less labour intensive ones, thus meaning Malta would not need such a high workforce.

The move towards a focus on quality of life will require a great many things to be done. Aside from the economic model shift, a transport plan that would really and truly reduce traffic, and planning policies that would lead to a better looking Malta that protects its green areas, it would also mean that 88,462 people would not be at risk of poverty (Based on the income year 2022, the number of at-risk-of-poverty persons living in Malta was estimated at this amount according to the National Statistics Office), and it would mean not making deals like that seen regarding three of Malta’s hospitals (which ended up being annulled in a court judgement that mentioned fraud), and instead always putting the people first, and also ensuring better good governance of public finances than the country has seen over recent years.