The Nationalist Party this evening expressed concern over EU figures which showed a substantial slow-down in industrial production in Malta.

Economic Affairs spokesman Mario de Marco and Finance spokesman Tonio Fenech noted that only Greece and Ireland had more serious slowing down than Malta.

These statistics, they observed, came in the wake of a 9% increase in unemployment and a drop in exports.

The spokesmen said that while the statistics could be seen as an exception if taken in isolation, seen together, they constituted a warning that economic momentum was slowing down. This was worrying because economic activity was the source of jobs and a slowing down of the rate of production was not a good augury for the future.

The spokesman invited the government to explain how many new industrial projects were approved in the past six months.

It was useless giving lip service to manufacturing industry. The government needed to tackle the problems which the sector was facing, in the same way as the previous government, in the midst of an international economic crisis, had rolled out tailor-made incentives to save 5,000 jobs while creating new ones, the PN spokesmen said.