Updated 2.23pm with remarks by chamber president -

Workers should not bear the brunt of the Coronavirus impact on the economy, Prime Minister Robert Abela told business leaders on Monday. 

Speaking during a meeting with the Chamber of Commerce, Abela said that those who would be hardest hit by a spread of the epidemic were workers in the lower economic brackets. 

While the business community would also be negatively impacted, he urged it to be considerate of families living on blue-collar wages. 

The government, he said, would step in where it could, but it could not shoulder all the burden either. 

Businesses across the board had done very well over the past five years, Abela said, and he believed it would not be long before there was a return to that economic pace. 

Chamber president David Xuereb presented the prime minister with a five-year economic plan, which he said the chamber had been working on for months.  

He said the chamber was disappointed by the way how  the government
introduced a legal notice over the weekend, requiring businesses to pay quarantine leave.

He said the chamber was calling for a scheme to subsidise part of employees’ and self-employed salaries.

It was also urging the government to pay for quarantine leave; introduce medical, financial and technical support for essential operations
including production, agriculture, shipping and logistics and immediate payment for government contracts.