Enterprise is working

The latest news that Tecom Investments is investing Lm92 million in Malta to become the major shareholder in Maltacom follows hot on the heels of the announcement by De LaRue that they will be investing Lm2 million to set up an ePassport factory in Malta.

Before that came other similar high profile announcements - HSBC and their call centre, an investment of Lm3million; SmartCity, with an investment of Lm110 million; the expansion of Lufthansa Teknik to 120 employees; the start up of ST Microelectronics' R&D section, today employing 60 Maltese engineers; the start up of Siegfried Generics; the expansions of Playmobil, Trellerborg, Inspectra and many others.

These are the "high profile" boys - consider only that in the last three years Malta Enterprise has approved 175 projects for a total investment of Lm95 million and one cannot but conclude that not only is Malta Enterprise (and its sister organisation Malta Industrial Parks) delivering the goods but also that we are achieving our investment goals. It is also worth mentioning that of those 175 projects, 58 were new and 61 were foreign owned, which goes to show that we have a healthy mix of proposals coming in.

Labour tells us we are not attracting investment. Facts speak otherwise, not to mention that this statement is particularly rich coming from a party which in 1997 and 1998 taken together attracted the miserly sum of Lm138 million in FDI! Last year alone we got nearly double that figure!

Investment is happening because this country has finally decided to do what it is best at - build on our skills, be flexible and provide quality. We are not doing it always and not everywhere but it seems we have turned the corner. To make that move permanent we just need to listen to what foreign investors say about Maltese employees: the most trainable, adaptable and competent employee one can find in Europe and to boot one that is ambitious, speaks English and wants to work!

The Labour Party's industrial policy document wants Malta to excel in "the production of salt" and the "repair" of motorcycles and cars (read it if you do not believe me!). It is also not the opinion of Alfred Sant who promised ex-Denim workers he would protect their jobs... knowing full well he cannot do anything of the sort. It is also not the opinion of those who still believe the low-cost mantra of New Labour.

But - argues "New Labour" - how are we going to employ the people who only know textiles or those who come out of school barely knowing how to read and write? Just look around you - Gene Gretchen, of STM fame, in a recent speech said: "At ST the senior management is made up of Maltese people: the very top ones even being two and a half Maltese..." He considers himself as "half" Maltese now because he has been here many years but the remaining 2,000 ST employees are all fully Maltese and the majority do not have a university degree! It is Maltese people working in all the factories and investments, either established or emerging. If STM, Playmobil and all the others believe in the Maltese, why can't Labour?

Look at the numbers. The number of those in gainful employment has increased by 2,400 but the number of jobs in the manufacturing industry has dropped by 4,600 in the past five years. One would therefore expect that either the persons registering for unemployment benefit or government employment has gone up. In fact, the registered jobless number 126 fewer than three years ago and, in the same period, government shed 2,191 jobs.

These numbers clearly indicate that what we lose from manufacturing we are either retraining or transferring to the private services sector. There is no doubt we have lost our competitive edge in a good number of areas - but so have the most evolved economies in the world. We should be proud we are no longer a cheap labour country and we should also be proud we have achieved this turn-around - not without pain - which is crucial for our future economic well-being.

This is what a modern thriving enterprise economy is all about. I think we may be starting to see the results even where GDP growth is concerned, although it is still too early for any assurances.

Of course, we are not "there" but I doubt if there actually is a "there". If we only had more confidence in ourselves, in what we can achieve; if we spent as much time creating business as we spend in grumbling about it, this would be a considerably more successful country.

There's much reason to believe it can be!