An economy for the people

Briefing Note by the Shadow Minister for the Economy Claudio Grech

The Nationalist Party is resolved to lead an economic transformation in which the economy will be truly meant to serve the people and not rule them: an economy which is geared to deliver solutions for our social challenges. We want to enable more of our people to participate in productive, quality-driven employment and empowering our workforce to earn significantly higher real income.

Our economic growth will thrive through leading-edge sustainability and an unprecedented respect for the environment, focusing on smart, high value-added industries, attracting global players and encouraging our indigenous start-ups to make it to the world-stage through Malta.

Most importantly the Nationalist Party will strive to enable an economy to empower people to get on with life, whilst ensuring that we collectively secure a better Malta for our future generations.

An Economy for the People is a timely initiative intended to openly share the Nationalist Party’s economic transformation aspirations, what we deem to be the core policy drivers going forward and how the Nationalist Party intends to structure its policy priorities in delivering a programme to address the economic challenges and exploit the emerging global opportunities.

The underlying inspiration of an Economy for the People is to position Malta as the undisputed regional leader for global business and local enterprise to set up, fund and rapidly grow their economic activities, whilst instilling the fundamentals of an ethical economy with human dignity and social justice as its key tenets.

The working document presents five core drivers which reflect the horizontal planes on which the vertical policy domains are being set out, namely:

¥ Robust Economic Growth Engine: Developing an indigenous robust growth engine, growing our workforce, shifting the focus from volumes to high productivity levels, value-added intensification and skills and capability deepening. In parallel, we need to sharpen our investment attractiveness by transforming our industrial landscape into a global investment district, through heightened levels of competitiveness and international business connectivity and also by strengthening institutions, and enshrining good governance, reinforcing the reputation of our jurisdiction as an equitable and accessible business hub.

• ¥  Environment as a Differentiator: Adopting the environment as a major economic differentiator, building our growth on the strategic entrenchment of environmental respect, responsible land use and energy-efficiency. This will enable us to consistently elevate Malta to one of the most liveable, creative, friendly and vibrant urban regions in the world blending smart urban lifestyle, preserving our unique heritage, ditching mediocrity for sophistication.
• ¥  Equity and human dignity: Creating prosperity through sustained levels of investment, balancing growth with equity in economic opportunity and the amplification of human dignity as an integral pivot in our economic aspirations. Entrenching mechanisms that will ingrain a fair model of distribution of wealth and promoting social mobility to ensure that the participation in economic growth will extend to all segments of our society.
• ¥  Digital beacon: Embracing the application of smart, and innovative technologies to evolve Malta in a beacon of ICT engagement, making technology an essential part of our social and economic fabric, strongly proliferating further the application of technology in industry and across society, enhancing our quality of life and providing a globally enabling environment for our enterprises.
• ¥  Gozo as mainstream: Gozo will be an integral part of our mainstream economic development. Our economy has to be equally fulfilling for Gozitans as it is for those residing on the main island. Gozo has exceptional natural, environmental and lifestyle capabilities which should be leveraged in their own right prioritising value-added investment and not short-sighted aid with minimal impact.

On the basis of these five core drivers, the working document sets out 20 policy priorities which are being proposed by the Nationalist Party to serve as the focus areas for the development and implementation of its policies. The policy priorities are supported by 145 key policy drivers and a set of 20 anchor measures intended to articulate a headline programme or initiative to be adopted in each domain.

1. 1  Boosting national productivity levels
2. 2  Accelerating labour force participation
3. 3  Engineering high value-added niches
4. 4  Entrenching responsible land and energy utilisation
5. 5  A paradigm shift in construction and property development
6. 6  A world-class infrastructure for a regional business beacon
7. 7  Spearheading global economic connectivity
8. 8  A next-generation taxation philosophy
9. 9  Inculcating passion for science and technology investment
10. 10  Leveraging ICTs to establish Malta as a global gateway
11. 11  A playground for the future urban environment
12. 12  Embracing value-added to re-invent manufacturing
13. 13  Realising the regional logistics powerhouse vision
14. 14  Expanding access to finance for productivity and innovation
15. 15  Trusted Malta: a safe, secure, stable and fair jurisdiction
16. 16  A world class business district
17. 17  An exceptionally liveable destination
18. 18  Extrapolate professional legacy into profession clusters
19. 19  Sparking the Social Enterprise revolution
20. 20  Shifting public services to enable efficient enterprise

The horizontal drivers, policy priorities and measures we are putting forward are grounded in consolidating continuity and economic stability, sending out a clear signal of confidence. Concomitantly, ‘An Economy for the People’ sets out how the Nationalist Party plans to go about accelerating the development path for Malta to raise its own development bar to transform itself into an advanced economy leveraging its digital credentials, whilst entrenching an unprecedented economic commitment towards sustainability.

This working document is intended to serve as a canvas for the political process shaping the Nationalist Party’s policy delivery plan. The result of this process will be a set of vertical granular sectoral plans, with the first plan being that for Gozo. Through this exercise the Nationalist Party is instigating a paradigm shift in how policy formulation is conducted in Malta: from top-down structures to a widely shared ownership of policy priorities, key drivers and core anchor measures to be funded and implemented.