We’ve lived through pandemic scares in recent years, but as COVID-19 brought our closest neighbour Italy to its knees, this time the consequences are hitting us harder than any other recent world crisis.

Internationally, this pandemic is causing similar levels of downturn to the 2008 global financial crisis and the Great Depression  but at a much quicker pace – within weeks, rather than years. In the words of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, we’re experiencing the greatest challenge since World War II.

Malta is facing this emergency from a position of strength. The determination, leadership and diligence of the team of experts heading the national effort to contain the spread of coronavirus is our rock of strength in this delicate situation. Our families and businesses are responding well to the authorities’ instructions. That’s a clear sign of confidence in our healthcare administrators. 

With full employment and one of the strongest economies in Europe, Malta is also in an advantageous position to support workers and families hard hit by the harsh, yet necessary containment measures. The government and social partners are working together to constantly augment and fine-tune the aid packages required by businesses as a first step to mitigate this arising situation. Here too, there’s a delicate balance to strike, taking stock of the bigger picture to avoid letting short-term measures erode years of growth and fiscal progress.

It is also encouraging to see some businesses swiftly adapting their distribution channels and other operational processes to keep serving their customers and to find new ways of retaining the productivity of their employees. Faced with sudden closure, many suppliers and service providers quickly set up online and delivery services, targeting thousands of families reluctant or unable to leave home.

No contingency plan could have fully prepared us for this situation but this is no time for rabbits caught in headlights. After the initial shock, we need to regroup, take stock of the situation and, as former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg put it, “convert retreat into advance”.

As we start adjusting to this reality, we need to take stock of our level of preparedness for such situations. We will overcome the coronavirus emergency, but how can we be better equipped to weather the next crisis, wherever it may stem from? How resilient are our skills, our homes and our personal resources? Are we living beyond our means? How can we enhance our employability? 

Malta is facing this emergency from a position of strength

The same argument holds for business. Are all our eggs in one coronavirus-hampered basket? If we’re not hard hit this time round, what’s our Achilles’ heel and what’s the corresponding contingency plan? Are we getting ready to make the most of the economic resurgence that will follow the current scenario, some predicting it as early as Q4 2020? How are we improving our closed shops, our empty hotel rooms, to make them more profitable when customers and bookings start flowing in again? How are we going to swiftly recover lost ground when the dust settles?

At times of economic turmoil, governments are encouraged to keep the economy’s engines running through an increase in public infrastructure investments that can support and stimulate long-term economic confidence, while compensating for lower private spending.

With the establishment of Infrastructure Malta in 2018, the coronavirus pandemic is coinciding with one of the most ambitious infrastructural development plans in Malta’s history. Transport and Infrastructure Minister Ian Borg recently confirmed in Parliament that this agency invested €103 million in road upgrades in 2019 and is working on a similar outlay of €110 million this year. This is just one aspect of this massive public investment. The same agency is engaged in major maritime infrastructure developments in our ports, including some €200 million in projects to improve the economic and environmental sustainability of the Grand Harbour.

The initial steps of the process to select the concessionaire to build and operate the Malta-Gozo Tunnel are underway. The government has just issued the first call for tenders for the Malta National Park project in Ta’ Qali, with an initial investment valued at €15 million. Other similar infrastructural upgrades have been taking place in recent years in healthcare, in electricity generation and distribution, and more recently, in the water sector.

The private telecommunications sector has followed suit with major investments in the quality and affordability of fibre-optic and wireless internet connectivity, placing Malta at the top of the EU table for ultrafast broadband. Imagine how many more businesses and government operations would have had to shut down had we still relied on slower internet services. Imagine how more difficult social distancing would have been.

The government needs to push forward more public investments that can better equip our country to swiftly return to long-term, sustainable growth, hopefully soon. One way of doing this is perhaps to identify those current emergency measures that are turning out to be promising long-lasting solutions for other challenges.

For example, are we studying the gains and losses of having many public servants working from home? How can the government invest in systems and procedures to turn this stopgap measure into a potential solution for an improved work-life balance, less reliance on transportation, lower office running costs and less pollution?

Is it ripe to push forward other large-scale infrastructural investments we’ve long been talking about, such as a mass rapid transit system, new sources of power generation, land reclamation, logistics hubs and proper urban greening in our most-densely populated localities?

This is surely not the time to firefight and retreat. Every ministry, every state entity must unfold action plans to prepare Malta to hit the ground running at the first signs of a revival. Let’s think outside the box and let us not allow this emergency to dampen our resolve to retain the social and economic progress we’ve got used to in recent years.

Thousands of families and businesses depend on us to ensure we all confidently believe there’s life after corona.

Fredrick Azzopardi, CEO of Infrastructure Malta