-
Looking ahead: Malta’s economic outlook for 2016
A new year is just around the corner and everyone is eager to ensure that the thriving Maltese economy remains on the up. Marie-Claire Grima speaks to two of the most influential figures in the Maltese business landscape to find out more about the nation’s economic prospects for 2016. As the end of…
-
Opposition has ‘brainwashed’ everyone against €360 million loan guarantee
Finance Minister Edward Scicluna hits out at the Opposition for ‘brainwashing’ people into opposing the €360 million loan guarantee given to a private company tasked with building the new gas-fired power station, Electrogas, in an interview in today’s issue. “This does not mean that there should not be an Opposition – I don’t mean it…
-
Two-thirds of my time now spent fighting bureaucracy
Finance Minister Edward Scicluna has singled out bureaucracy as a major obstacle to economic growth, saying he spent “at least two-thirds” of his time trying to overcome it. Speaking at the Hilton during a presentation on the EY Eurozone and Malta forecasts, he gave as an example a 10-hour debate at committee stage in Parliament,…
-
Our interest in Greek saga
On the financial front, Greece took centre stage last week, with an insurmountable problem to solve. The ever-increasing burden of the public debt, now standing at 175 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and its 25 per cent cut in its GDP since the beginning of the crises, with a similar figure of…
-
Private sector is driving force
I would be a very worried minister and member of this government if the surge in Malta’s economic growth was solely, or primarily, due to uncontrolled government employment. But this is the picture which the Opposition is trying to depict. It is building its case through anecdotal evidence and questionable use of statistics. The Opposition…
-
The ‘€400m discrepancy’
Arriva was bought by the government for one euro and that needed explaining. A €4 million value needs as much explaining if not more. And that is what the National Statistics Office (NSO) did in its latest newsletter on the subject of Malta’s deficit and debt for the year 2013. But for the leader of…
-
Malta’s clean bill of health from Brussels
Debt is sustainable and the financial sector stable, Finance Minister Edward Scicluna has said, citing the European Commission’s review of Malta while lambasting the Opposition’s negativity over the government’s initiatives on the economy. He was speaking in Parliament, which on Wednesday approved the Budget Measures Implementation Bill in its the second reading with 36 votes…
-
Regaining Malta’s credibility
Nobody as yet knows what the final, accrued deficit figure for 2013 is expected to be. It will be a few more weeks before the Treasury and the National Statistics Office submit the public accounts to Eurostat for their scrutiny and subsequent confirmation, sometime during the third week of April. And yet the announcement by…
-
Deficit aim ‘credible’
The Government decided to raise the target deficit for 2013 from 1.7 to 2.7 per cent to be more credible and realistic in its projections and would now have to face the European Commissioner to give him a detailed explanation of the €70 million increase in expenditure, which inevitably affected the deficit. “The Government…
-
From ‘good performer’ to laggard
Only four years ago an EU official had gone on record saying that Malta had managed to learn the ropes of a complicated and highly bureaucratic system very well and was performing much above its weight. He was referring to the absorption of funds under the 2000-2006 financial programme. It was a nice compliment that…