Labour electoral proposals to be included in budget, PM says

The upcoming budget for 2018 will include a number of measures that had been proposed in the Labour Party’s electoral programme, in a bid to further improve the standard of living of Maltese workers and families, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said this morning.

Muscat, in a brief telephone interview on One Radio, said that the government was currently examining which measures to include in the budget and which would have the most positive impact.

On the decision by ratings agency Fitch to upgrade Malta's rating from A to A+, he said that these ratings made Malta more attractive for foreign investment and could also allow Malta to borrow money, if the need arose, at competitive interest rates.

“These results we are obtaining - and some weeks ago Standard and Poors also upgraded our rating - are not a coincidence but a result of the government's economic policy and financial programme.”.

Muscat said the government’s strategy remained focused on Malta’s manufacturing industry, as well as financial services and the gaming sector.

“We also need to continue tackling other issues such as rent and social housing,” he said. “This week we already saw a new scheme being introduced to incentivise private investment in social housing.”

The prime minister also noted that the Financial Times stated this week that Maltese citizenship for investment scheme was the best in the world, despite all the criticism of the system by the opposition in the past years.