Business positive about government's Lisbon plans

The Malta Chamber of Commerce has come out with a positive assessment of the targets being proposed by the government to reach the Lisbon agenda goals.

A report issued yesterday in Brussels by Eurochambers, representing 44 chamber organisations in Europe, shows that the Malta Chamber of Commerce believes the government has a reasonably good idea of the challenges facing business and the economy.

The report comes on the eve of the European Commission's first assessment of Malta's plan to reach the Lisbon agenda goals set for 2010, known as the National Reform Plan (NRP).

The Lisbon goals are a set of economic and social benchmarks laid down by the EU for its member states in a bid to make the EU economy the most dynamic in the world.

According to the Eurochambers report, Maltese business is expecting the implementation of the plan to deepen and extend the internal market and lead to more flexibility of the labour market.

Asked whether the implementation of the action plan will lead to more investment in human resources and to the modernisation of education and training systems, the Malta Chamber agreed that this should be the final result of the reform. However, it is expecting that the plan's implementation will lead to only a slight improvement in employment levels.

The Malta NRP is a three-year programme of planned reforms presented to the EU last year aimed at boosting the island's chances of reaching the Lisbon goals by 2010.

The document spells out the key priority areas to improve Malta's economic performance including the sustainability of public finances, improving competitiveness, boosting employment creation, reforming the educational system and improving the environment. The document also sets time frames for meeting the targets.