Swedish minister urges Malta to turn problems into opportunities

Immigration is a "huge" problem for Malta because of the sheer number of immigrants arriving but the government should strive to turn this into an opportunity, Swedish Trade Minister Ewa Björling said yesterday.

She was addressing a joint press conference with Finance Minister Tonio Fenech after the two held discussions on the priorities of the Swedish presidency of the European Union, which will take over from the Czech Republic in July.

"Of course, it is a huge problem for Malta, I realise that... but you also need to see the opportunities and the positive things you can get out of the problems. Sometimes, you also have to turn the situation around and think in another way," she said.

She explained that this was what Sweden did with a number of environmental issues, such as waste management, where it turned waste into renewable energy.

Dr Björling said that Sweden, which had the third largest number of Iraqi refugees in the world, had managed to turn this into an opportunity to strengthen its foreign trade.

Giving an example, she said Sweden had used the immigrants' networks, trade expertise and language skills to train Swedish people who wanted to set up companies abroad and this had helped improve Sweden's international trade.

Earlier, in a meeting with Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi, she said immigration would be one of Sweden's priorities. Other Swedish priorities were the handling of the financial crisis, stimulating trade to avoid protectionism and tackling climate, energy and environmental issues.

With Mr Fenech, she also discussed development aid to Africa and the importance of improving trade relations with North Africa to make the continent stronger and ease the pressure on Europe.

Mr Fenech said Malta's input in stimulating development in Africa was political rather than financial and it had to persuade the European countries to give the necessary attention to the issue.

"We need to support Africa's development so that the economy there grows and starts to give the opportunities to the people of Africa and therefore reducing the pressure on EU member states," Mr Fenech said.

He said that while turning immigration into opportunities was a possibility and could be part of the solution, the sheer number of immigrants made this difficult.