The country will be successful this year if it remains focused on its priorities, namely employment, investment and economic activity, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said this morning.

Speaking during a dialogue meeting at Naxxar, the Prime Minister said that the challenges were there but you - the people, will help us win them.”

The people, Dr Gonzi said, were this country’s only resource and they had to be invested in.

Global matters had also affected Malta and the destiny of the country’s factories depended on what was happening in the rest of the world.

But the government was proactive and had set up a task force, presided by Finance Minister, to address challenges and seek solutions. This was what was being done.

On the same subject, Finance Minister Tonio Fenech said that the government was taking the initial step by offering its assistance to factories in trouble.

Rather than just safeguarding jobs, it was also seeking opportunities and encouraging these factories to get their planned investment to Malta.

Trelleborg, he said, had been thinking about investing in Poland but the government managed to convince it that Malta was the best place to invest in.

Dr Gonzi said that the government was there to take wise and not necessarily popular decisions. It was not perfect and it made mistakes but it also had to realise where it was strong.

The country’s strengths included that it was an EU country and that it was in the euro zone, two issues which the opposition had been opposed to, he said.

One of the speakers at this morning's meeting was environmentalist Alan Deidun, who is contesting the MEP elections on the PN ticket.

He promised he would continue working for the environment and would not be changing his green hat for a blue one.

On the contrary, he would work for the party’s blue hat to take on it a greater shade of green.

He said he admired the PN for not being afraid of taking tough decisions even if this meant that it would lose votes.