Facts and opinions about the economy

Lino Spiteri managed to find fault with the Prime Minister even when the latter was manifestly right and the villain of the week was "the Labour Party's chief economist", Edward Scicluna (The Times, Business Supplement, March 25).

The Prime Minister rightly stressed that according to the internationally accepted definition of a recession, Malta was on its way to recovery.

He put in more than a word of caution that we still have to be careful as Malta's economy depends on the strength of recovery of our major trading partners.

He did not say so, but to me even though not an economist, that means that our relative success should be totally ascribed to the managers of our economy, the government as well as the cooperating social partners.

On the other hand, Prof. Scicluna denied that Malta was recovering and to prove his point he compared the last quarter of 2009 with that of 2008, when recessions as well as recoveries are measured by comparing successive quarters. How can a reputed economist slip so unprofessionally? Has he no professional pride and self-respect? Such a betrayal of the economics profession called not for a "a gentle rebuke" but an outright condemnation. It's one thing giving an opinion, which may be right or wrong but is acceptable. Economics is far from an exact science. In the past, Prof. Scicluna was proved wrong on many an occasion, notably his past advice to devalue our currency and his warning not to adopt the euro in 2008.

To his credit, in the latter case, he admitted his mistake.

Poor Malta if Dr Muscat manages to gain power and relies on advice from the PL's chief economist!