Malta has featured at the bottom of Eurostat figures for the second time in a week, with a drop in imports and exports being the steepest among the EU member states, the PN said.

Imports and exports dropped by 10% and 24% respectively in the first six months of this year, the worst performance in the EU.

This confirmed that the Labour government was far from its ambition of making Malta the best in Europe, the PN said.

Earlier this week Malta was also reported to have suffered the biggest drop in industrial production.

The party said it was concerned by the latest figures, especially since half of the member states had seen export growth. It was also worrying that the latest drop was part of a trend.

While the exports drop showed problems in industry, the decline in imports was symptomatic of the fact that even if the economy had grown, the people were not seeing any improvement.

It hoped that the government would address these issues by reducing tax burdens on the people and giving incentives to business.