iGaming conference Sigma injected €100 million in the economy in the three days it spent in Malta, Robert Abela said Sunday.

It caused traffic congestion, especially on the first day, he admitted, but the solution going forward should be to invest in a larger conference centre that can accommodate 30,000 quality tourists rather than chasing the event away from the country.

"It is money people are going to benefit from - not to mention the direct income it brought for hairdressers, people who set up equipment, chauffers, hoteliers and restauranters, among others," he said.

Abela was speaking at a Labour event in Msida, where he told supporters the Nationalist Party's solutions to such problems were populist, ineffective and would stifle the much-needed economic growth.

"On the first day of the conference Bernard Grech criticised it on Facebook, only to then visit the venue a day later and tell them the event was happening thanks to the PN," Abela said.

"He isn't even embarrassed."

The PN should be clear on whether it would continue to support Sigma in Malta, Abela said, because the government was willing to and would like the conference's biggest event of the year to continue to be held in Malta.

'Malta should invest in larger conference centre'

Abela indicated next year's event will be smaller, although still one of the biggest Sigma offers, and that the country needed to invest in a larger conference centre.

Malta does have traffic challenges, he conceded, but the solutions should be found through collaboration with experts, and not through populist rhetoric, he said.

Over the past years, the PN has been resistant to all major infrastructural projects - Central Link, the Marsa, Kappara and Luqa junctions - but the government was convinced about its vision. Those projects did not solve all traffic problems and congestion will continue to be a challenge, he said, adding that they were still necessary.

The PN was now resisting the Msida project as well, even though it had supported it at a local council level up to a few months ago, he said.

"With the PN you really don't know where you stand," he said.

"The Msida project will improve traffic flows but is also heeding people's calls for more green spaces within infrastructure projects."

Economic 'development', not 'growth'

Abela said such major projects - along with the massive energy and food subsidies and the myriad of social measures, schemes and initiatives that the government has managed to sustain for years - were only possible because the economy continued to grow, despite the pandemic and inflation challenges which "now seem to be behind us".

"We can't afford to not grow the economy, but not at all costs," he told supporters.

"That's why we're now calling it 'economic development', not 'economic growth'. Development ensures that the wealth we generate is distributed more fairly across society and includes investment in more green spaces."

One of those spaces is an 11-tumoli green public space - Spencer Gardens - that will be inaugurated in Marsa this week.

"Now that we managed to control inflation, we can usher the country into a nicer period during which we must make the leap of quality that takes us to our Vision 2050," he said.

The government has already shown it was going in that direction, not least with the budget's historic tax cut, thanks to which workers will not be paying any tax on the first €1,000 they earn monthly.

But not just that, he added. Some 33,000 government workers will benefit from better working conditions when their new collective agreement is signed this week. Educators, police and nurses will also benefit from it, over and above the benefits they already get from the sectorial agreements in their respective sessions.

Meanwhile, pensioners continued to enjoy higher pensions. Since 2013, the government has given them a combined pension increase of €70 per week, which means that today they get the equivalent of a year's pension under PN in just eight months.

1,000 people more retire than join the workforce

But there s another challenge, he added. Every year, 1,000 people more retire than join the workforce and the birth rate remains low.

"I will not criticise families for deciding to have few children, as my wife and I are one of those couples who decided to have only one child," he said.

"Everyone makes their own decisions, but we need to find solutions to that problem without being populist."

That meant the country needed foreign workers but not ones that would contribute to lowering salaries for the Maltese and Gozitans.

"I want Maltese and Gozitan people to continue to grab the best opportunities while the contribution of foreign workers to serve only to boost our quality of life."

He also touched on construction, saying the new, €24 million, carbon-neutral Msida primary school was a lesson on how the sector should move forward by being innovative and environmentally friendly.