Updated: Finance Ministry says Opposition not backing its claims on the economy

The Finance Ministry said today that Opposition Leader Joseph Muscat had not produced any facts to back the claim he made yesterday that the economy shrank by nearly 5% in the first quarter.

The NSO said last week that the economy shrank by 3.3% in the first quarter.

The ministry said the global economic crisis was affecting all countries, but the government's decisions, including euro adoption, were shielding the country from the worst consequences.

It accused Dr Muscat of exaggerating matters for political gain and said this was a dangerous tactic which could sow uncertainty among investors, more so as Dr Muscat had not backed his claims.

The ministry said the country should be uniting to face these difficult times, but the Opposition had opted to play the partisan game.

PL EXPLAINS

The PL in a reaction said GDP was during the first quiarter favourably affected by the 18 million euros spent on the dockyard early retirement schemes. This was calculated as being a boost for the economy, when, in truth, this had not served for the economy to grow.

When the schemes were taken out of the equation, it was clear that GDP fell by 4.6 percent between January and March.

The PL said the government needed to admit such problems and then say how it would tackle them, rather than try to hide them.