Pow! Taking Malta forward

Using EU jargon, a one-day conference will be held today on Taking the Lisbon Strategy Forward. This will start the consultation process, to be coordinated by the Competitiveness Minister, to draw up a national reform programme covering 2005-08, in line with an EU request to member states to analyse their situation, mid-way through the 2000-10 span of the Lisbon Agenda targets.

We are past mid-way through 2005. Several plans of action have already been drawn up, aimed to carry Malta forward with higher economic growth and more jobs.

The consultation process seems set to cover old ground. The Competitiveness Minister, announcing the process, made a bald statement. It would be useless to have very high Lisbon Agenda targets that are impossible to meet, he said. In Malta's case he cited research and development, and the female employment activity rate (The Times, July 1).

A year into EU membership, the Minister is preparing the ground for a scaling down of what was declared to be both highly desirable as well as achievable, barely a few months' back. Realism can never be wrong, even if it means lowering aspirations.

One would have thought, though, that research and development should remain a key, high target for the government to set. Not just by talking about the role of the University and MCAST, and their relationship with the real economy. By doing more about it. More seems to be set to equate to less emphasis.

The need to increase the female activity rate is crucial. The human resource base has to be expanded, in numbers as well as quality. Numbers can only rise meaningfully through more females being attracted into paid economic activity. To suggest, as some have done, that immigration would be a significant way to fill jobs that are - we trust - generated through economic growth, is odd to the extreme.

An increase in the female activity rate will remain an official policy target. The Minister, though, seems to be signalling that the target may be decreased. Thereby, focus will not remain as intense.

The declared aim of today's conference is to give stakeholders the opportunity to provide concrete initiatives that can be taken to achieve the Lisbon targets and priorities in line with Malta's national interest.

One hopes that stakeholders can and do make new and concrete proposals. The point is, whether so many proposals that have been made over the years have been acted upon.

Proposals and action are constrained by Malta's basic economic reality. It is that the island crucially depends on exports and productive investment; on sales of goods and services to foreigners and investment in capital stock that can be used successfully to sell goods and services to the rest of the world.

Within that reality, two priorities stand out. They do not require fresh proposals or more conferences. One is for the government to do whatever lies in its powers to facilitate and dynamise existing economic operators, and new ones that locate here. These should have a single point to which they make their complaints, requests and suggestions. That should be Malta Enterprise (ME), positioning it for more effective relationship building. At the government end there should be a high-powered Public Action Unit (PAU) (pronounced Pow) with which Malta Enterprise would deal. The unit should be given the authority to demand and get the required action from the broad public sector, within specified time-frames. One-Stop (ME) + One-Stop (PAU) - that would be concrete.

The second priority is to endow and direct Malta Enterprise, the Malta Financial Services Authority and our diplomatic representation abroad to make coordinated drives to attract export-oriented foreign direct investment. Not a single letter or space new in that definition. But, most definitely, proper endowment and new dynamism are urgently required.

One can add a third priority - take on board all sensible proposals, wherever they come from, and mobilise all Malta's known human resources, irrespective of whoever happens to be in government.

Whether one calls the above part of taking the Lisbon Agenda forward or not, it could be a key part of taking Malta forward.