The present government keeps talking down the manufacturing industry as though it could have no viable role in the future of our economy. They perpetuate a number of myths that damage our ability to entice people and investors to look at this industry as a feasible medium to promote economic growth. To be fair, a number of countries have made the same mistake the present government is making only to regret this attitude when they had killed the potential of extracting value from such economic activity.

We must dispose of these myths.

The first myth is that manufacturing is a sunset industry of the past with no prospects for the future. Of course, this judgement could be correct when applied to low skill, labour intensive, and low capital manufacturing. We had some of these industries several decades ago and no one is arguing we should revive these basic manufacturing industries. But that is only a small part of the manufacturing industry.

Let us take an example. One could argue convincingly that building unsophisticated ships is no longer viable in Malta and other places in Europe where wages are now two or three times what they are in some low-cost European states, and 10 times higher than they are in China. But other European countries, like Italy, the UK, Holland, and Germany, that were much stronger in shipbuilding in the past are now exploiting their skills base in this area and are building technically advanced tugboats and sophisticated luxury boats and yachts.

Our aim should be to have highly skilled, highly paid people working in manufacturing.

Textiles are another good example. We may not be able to compete with countries like China and Vietnam in manufacturing t-shirts and baseball caps, but the higher added value end of this industry still offers opportunities for us to create new niche businesses in this sector. After all, there is still a vibrant textiles industry in the UK and Italy producing specialised products and services that have become world leaders in their sector.

A sector which so far has been successful, but which needs further support, is the pharmaceutics. Continuing to rely on the Bolar exemption to attract generic drug manufacturers may not be enough because other EU countries will soon be able to offer the same advantage. Investing in the education of our young people who should be encouraged to study sciences more intensely will give us a competitive edge over our competitors.

Another myth that needs to be challenged continuously is that we can all prosper on services and it is therefore time to let manufacturing die a natural death. We seem to forget that even in higher-cost countries like Japan manufacturing is still thriving and creating several highly-paid jobs.

In fact, a sound manufacturing base catering for niche products will create a service industry directly through the supply chain. If we manage to attract investors in manufacturing high value machine tools (Switzerland does this all the time) there will be a demand for management, marketing and accountancy professionals, and software designers, among others.

The inter-linkages between manufacturing and services is so strong we should be talking more about "industrial services" than looking at manufacturing and services as being two intrinsically distinct economic activities. This is already happening in various EU countries.

A future Labour government will not shy away from taking a leading role to revive our manufacturing sector. We will start with ensuring that our economy performs well with special emphasis on the control of inflation.

Further attention needs to be given to upgrade our educational standards that have fallen so alarmingly over the past few decades. We will reform technical education to make it once again a viable and attractive option for young people as well as for adult workers who want to enhance their technical careers with further training. The teaching of sciences will be a priority.

Finally, we will ensure that the physical and administrative infrastructure is friendly to entrepreneurs who we know have a choice where to invest their money. We have full faith in the ability of our workers to rise to the occasion so long as we provide them with the opportunities to upgrade their skill because, for Labour, the manufacturing industry still matters.

Dr Mangion is deputy leader of the Malta Labour Party and its main spokesman on the economy and finance.

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