Gonzi urges people to believe in themselves

Believing in ourselves as a nation is key in ensuring an even better standard of living, especially when one considered that Malta had a history of great successes, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said yesterday.

Speaking during a Nationalist Party discussion meeting in Santa Venera last night, Dr Gonzi said that in order to enjoy a better standard of living - one of the party electoral slogans - one had to stop thinking of Malta as small fry, suggest that small children repeat a year, or devaluate the lira, proposals that have been made by the Labour Party.

Dr Gonzi sat round a small table under a tent surrounded by party candidates and supporters.

He spoke about the package of fiscal measures he announced earlier in the day and touched upon various subjects including part-time employment, the need of more workers in various sectors and the importance of a stable economy in attracting investment.

Economist John C. Grech, a guest in the discussion, said that while Malta's economy was doing well it was important to start discussing productivity. Malta was not doing that well in areas such as research and development, creativity and the number of women at work and, when it came to sustainability, there was still work to be done.

The government's targets for 2015 - to turn Malta into a centre of excellence in a number of sectors - were important and possible but they needed to be communicated in a better way so that the people would understand that it was a vision that included them.

Malta needed a social and economic pact so that all agreed on where we were heading and worked to get there.

Dr Gonzi said that shortly after he became Prime Minister he had tried to come up with a social pact but this was stopped by the General Workers' Union.

Gordon Cordina, another economist, also spoke about productivity. More people should be working productively in jobs that paid well and saving was important as it led to investment.

People ought to consume sensibly without wasting and this will have positive repercussions on the environment.

Dr Cordina called on the political parties to think of measures such as putting a portion of money collected through taxes into a fund from which workers would benefit, invest in energy generation systems that did not depend on oil and in a more flexible social system according to the economy's needs.