A committee has been set up to draw up a national strategy to increase the number of electric and hybrid cars on the Maltese islands.

Launching the committee this morning, Resources Minister George Pullicino said that car manufacturers were putting more of these cars on the market so the strategy to be drawn up had to also consider future developments.

The committee, the minister said, would be drawing up a report by September and this would then be examined by the government.

Currently there are 25 private electric cars, excluding the hybrids. If one were to include the City Cabs, the number would go up to just over 60.

Mr Pullicino said that the amount of emissions have doubled since the 1990s. Sixteen per cent of these emissions were produced by cars.

The committee is being chaired by Peter Mifsud from the Resources Authority. The other members are Benjamin Pule (Resources Ministry, secretary), and David Sutton (Transport Malta), Harold Bonnici (Finance Ministry), Joe Cilia (Institute for Sustainable Energy) and Anthony Borg (Consumers' Parliamentary Secretariat).