In the 60 years since independence, Malta has been an economic success story, one of just six countries with an annual average growth rate exceeding five per cent. Over the last decade alone, we doubled the size of our economy.

This has enabled us to face successfully huge challenges, such as the pandemic and the global surge in inflation, without imposing austerity measures. Instead, we greatly increased the minimum wage, pensions and children’s allowances. 

This year’s budget has seen us not just maintaining the many benefits introduced previously, such as the €10,000 grant to first-time buyers and the €1,500 allowance to parents with children who continue with post-secondary education. We have also enacted another important manifesto pledge – a tax cut for all full-time workers.

The change in thresholds, the largest ever made, will leave €140 million in families’ pockets, and 18,000 persons will no longer pay tax. This is more than twice the amount we had pledged.

We have done the same with children’s allowance. In the manifesto we promised an increase of €90 per year. Instead, we have increased this benefit by nearly €200 per year.

For a middle-income family with two children, these two measures alone will boost income by €1,800.

All pensioners will receive an increase of at least €8 per week, with even bigger increases for widows and those on supplementary assistance.

Thanks to the additional mechanism against inflation, introduced two years ago, 100,000 families will be getting benefits amounting to almost €50 million. We have announced yet more increases for those on the inwork benefit, for those with disabilities and their carers, and for persons on social assistance.

All of this is possible because, once more, we have the highest rate of economic growth in Europe. We have not just kept true to our electoral pledges. We have done so while outperforming our fiscal targets. A year ago, our target was to reduce the deficit to three per cent by 2027, instead we will do it a year earlier.

In 2023, our GDP per capita for the first time exceeded the euro area average, a target we expected to reach by the end of this legislature. As a result, we will accelerate our implementation of a new economic vision.

With the assistance of international experts that have helped develop strategies for countries like Denmark and Singapore, we have launched our Malta Vision 2050 process, with strategic targets set for 2035.

We are committed to improving quality of life- Robert Abela

That said, Malta Enterprise has already shifted its focus from supporting projects on the basis of the number of jobs created to instead supporting projects based on the value-added generated. Each project approved this year is, in fact, expected to generate improvements more than three times the average of projects approved in the previous decade. It is also focusing on investments in sectors crucial to our country’s success in the digital and green transformations.

For this new industrial policy to be successful, we need a radical change in our employment policy. In recent years, we achieved our goal of moving from having one of Europe’s lowest employment rates to having one of the best rates. Now we must focus not just on job creation but on skills creation. Therefore, the unprecedented investment in the education sector with the best sectoral agreement ever given to educators. We now also need to spearhead a new focus on non-formal training and education.

If we are being more selective in the investments we support, we need to become more selective in the foreign workers we attract. Next year, we will consult social partners on a mechanism which will determine in which sectors additional foreign workers will be considered. We started this summer with the decision to stop considering applications for new food couriers.

In addition, we need foreign workers to have better skills. That is why we introduced measures such as the skills pass in the tourism sector.

The new migration process will not just focus on economic considerations. Permits will only be granted to those employers who adhere to laws and regulations, and who adequately invest in their existing workforce.

We are committed to improving quality of life. We want new buildings to have less impact on the environment and be more aesthetically pleasing. We do not just plan to deliver more open and green spaces through public projects, we also want private projects to deliver this.

The budget includes measures like free mental health sessions in the community, grants to low-income families to buy books for their children and a free gym membership for six months for young people.

These and others make up the budget we have presented with the aim that economic success translates directly in a better quality of life for all. A plan to take Malta to the next level.

Robert Abela is prime minister.