Muscat emphasises commitment to bring more investment, says people rejected negative politics

Malta’s economy was doing very well, but the government would nonetheless remain committed to bringing more work and investment to Malta, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said this morning.

In a telephone interview on One Radio, the Prime Minister said that although a recent IMF report showed that the country’s economy was performing strongly, and was forecast to remain amongst the fastest growing economies in Europe, there was still more work the government had to do.

“I was in Asia this week to meet with investors and attract more job opportunities to Malta,” he said, referring to his visit to the Asia for a Henley and Partners conference, intended to promote sales of passports.

The most important indicator of how the government was doing was how the silent majority felt, Muscat maintained, adding that in the past few weeks the people were observing and making their own decisions.

“I think the silent majority are approving of how the government deals with difficult situations, by not creating division but pushing for unity,” he claimed.

The previous week had also been a wake-up call for the opposition, Muscat said, maintaining that the people were refusing to accept the opposition’s negative style of politics, and were asking it to change its way of doing things.

The Prime Minister also briefly mentioned a few of the initiatives which the government had been taking to further help the job market, such as the new rules for home workers which were announced this week. Home workers had previous been left unregulated and ignored, he said.

He concluded by saying that the he accepted criticism, but such criticism had to be placed within the context of the previous administration not having done certain things which were required in the 25 years the were in government.