The government will on Monday announce financial incentives to encourage people to eat out at restaurants and go on weekend breaks, Prime Minister Robert Abela said on Sunday.
The measures, he said, were meant to inject a feel-good factor back in the economy.
Some, he said, would receive more than others, in the “targeted” programme of measures.
Abela also hinted that there would be “rewards” for enterprises that had flourished during the coronavirus pandemic.
“We are a government that helps, that gives, not one that takes away in taxes,” he added.
On Monday the government is expected to announce a number of financial measures to help facilitate the island’s post-COVID economic recovery.
Abela had announced last week that the government would present a 'multi-million' programme with its latest measures to help businesses and encourage consumption.
Speaking on the Labour Party’s media platform ONE on Sunday, Abela said that since relaxing restrictive measures earlier this month, he had already started to see the country “come back to normality”.
He said he was encouraged when he saw the public returning to the streets, go to shops, and enjoying the summer with family and friends.
The measures due to be unveiled on Monday will be the fourth stimulus package since the virus outbreak first hit the island’s shores. Abela, however, said the measures will be more like a “mini-Budget”.
Abela told his Labour Party interviewer on Sunday, that the wage supplement introduced to help keep people in employment during the outbreak had helped businesses hold on to their staff.
They could not hit the ground running otherwise, he said.
“Some would have said, allow these businesses to die a natural death. But I could never accept that,” he said.
Earlier during the interview, Abela weighed in on the government's decision to bring ashore the migrants that were being held on makeshift detention vessels.
Ball is in pilots' court
Abela also weighed in on the sacking of 69 Air Malta pilots after failed talks, which have stretched on for months.
The decision, he said, would have to be seen in the context of the way pilots had behaved during the negotiations, describing them as uncooperative.
Describing an “industrial pique” between the government and the pilots’ union, Abela said that the ball was now in their court.
“We won’t backtrack on the announced redundancies, but the ball is now in the union’s court, if they want to sit down around a table again, then they will have to draft proposals that make sense,” he said.
Abela said the airline had faced a situation of close to zero revenue during the outbreak, with a closed airport, yet pilots still expected to have working conditions that were among the best in the world.
The Airline Pilots Association (ALPA), meanwhile, insists that the virus outbreak is being used as an excuse to take advantage of pilots.