From stability to prosperity – Miriam Dalli, Minister for Environment Energy and Enterprise

An unprecedented energy crisis following a global pandemic has fuelled a never-before-seen level of economic and social disruption all across Europe and beyond. Yet, together, we managed to navigate through unchartered territories taking bold decisions all the way. The solutions we devised were stronger than the challenges we faced. Together we can achieve more.

Malta is registering one of the strongest post-covid recovery rates in Europe supported by a record low unemployment number and one of the lowest levels of inflation in the region. These results are a direct reflection of the decisions we took.

We wanted to ensure energy price stability for Maltese families and our business community. We invested millions to shield our consumers and industry players from burdens which would have diluted spending power and our competitiveness as a country.

One of the initial decisions I took as the Minister responsible for Enterprise was to extend the wage supplement scheme for the first two quarters of the year, to allow our business community to recover strongly from the consequences of the pandemic.

At the onset, none of us would have thought the pandemic would bring such a severe disruption to the global world. Even fewer of us would have thought we could endure such a crisis of unprecedented magnitude. However, this country showed remarkable strength, endurance and resilience over the past two years not just during the pandemic, but also as we are living through the ensuing war on Ukraine that only continued to exacerbate the pressures felt on the global economy.

Although the two events combined severely restricted commercial activity, they also accelerated changes in consumer and corporate behaviour which were an afterthought just a few years ago. With this, the demand for sustainability and digitalisation experienced a steep rise – remote working became move of a norm, global appreciation for sustainability and quality of life increased, and digitalisation efforts improved. Because of this, therefore, the need to implement change has never been so critical.

This is why I will continue to pursue this positive change and will continue steering enterprise towards this change, in order to reach our common goals as a nation. It is now even more important that the two concepts of environment and enterprise must no longer be considered mutually exclusive, but rather go hand-in-hand to help us achieve the country’s economic vision.

An instrumental factor in all this is the work of Malta Enterprise that ensures that, as a country, we have the right investment infrastructure that drives and enhances investment towards our economy. Malta Enterprise makes sure there is the right number of incentives to boost business models, boost commercial activity towards the right sectors, while establishing growth-focused initiatives across the country. All while ensuring that enterprise is able to deliver sustainable growth over the long term.

OUTLOOK The significance and impact of our carbonneutrality targets have only intensified this past year – they must be achieved at all costs. Greening our business models and digitizing operations remain at the top of my Ministry’s agenda in order to reach our goals and our mission. The benefit of this is two-fold: it will facilitate access to capital while also opening up revenue opportunities from what has so far been an untapped market in the Maltese economy. As increased European financial regulation nears, it is up to us to adapt and learn about the upcoming changes and be proactive in implementing them in our business models. Maltese companies are no exception when it comes to these requirements, and therefore the onus is on us to make sure we are leaders and not followers in this change. In the local context, efforts have intensified in bringing forward a strong green bond framework that will allow Maltese companies to issue sustainable financing vehicles for green projects. We want private investors to move out of their comfort zone and invest in nontraditional, green bonds that will inevitably bring about sufficiently high investment returns while simultaneously increasing awareness in the local financial markets.

In light of this, our focus on companies reporting on their ESG credentials has only continued to rise. With an increase in the number of voluntary reporting participants, and an improvement in these companies’ carbon and social footprint, our vision of making the investment community more aware and cognisant of the importance and the effectiveness of companies’ environmental reporting requirements.

Together we attained stability, together we shall achieve prosperity. n

En Route to Change

The Future for Sustainable Transport

The shift to electrification, and other cleaner technologies in transport, is leaving anyone in the transport industry asking various questions: “Do we know enough?” “What do we need to do to prepare our businesses?” “Do we need the same financing?” “Is our overall business model still fitting the purpose?”

The en route to change initiative was launched in September 2022 to start addressing these questions in a structured manner. The dialogue pursued is generating awareness and understanding. The Foundation for Transport is working with an extensive range of stakeholders so that we build together a common knowledge and identified knowledge gaps are matched by holistic solutions. Industry players from Malta and Gozo form part of solutions. During 2023, the Foundation is working to bring about wide array solutions to safeguard connectivity and overall competitiveness.