Insurance sector will boom – Gonzi

Malta’s insurance sector would experience “extraordinary” growth once second-pillar pensions were introduced, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi predicted yesterday.

But second-pillar, or privatised, pension schemes would only be introduced when the national economic climate suited them, he added, arguing that doing otherwise would set the economy backwards.

Dr Gonzi was speaking at the tail-end of a Nationalist Party business breakfast with financial services stakeholders yesterday morning. The main part of the breakfast was closed to the media.

He praised the sector for its contribution to the Maltese economy and pointed to some key statistics as evidence.

The sector employs 12,000 people in Malta, the Prime Minister said. 2011 saw just under 3,500 new financial services companies register themselves in Malta. This year, some 2,500 such companies had been registered to date, he said.

Furthering the financial services sector’s success in the years to come would require greater investment in education, with companies thirsty for greater numbers of qualified, quality University graduates capable of working within the field.

Dr Gonzi said that it was therefore imperative that the Government continued to channel the money and resources necessary to educational institutions such as the University or MCAST.

“Unless Malta can provide operators with the skilled graduates they need to keep their businesses flourishing, the country risks undoing all its achievements in this sector,” he said.

The Prime Minister revisited his controversial claim that 20,000 jobs had been created over the past four years, saying the financial services sector had played a key part in this achievement.

The Government had done well in attracting financial services companies to Malta, he said. Now, the challenge was to draw their top managers and directors to live in Malta, Dr Gonzi said.

Doing so would mean creating attractive financial packages for such individuals, he said. The Government has already started working in this direction, with specialised tax schemes aimed at executives working within the gaming and financial services sector.