The Nationalist Party today welcomed the EU’s conditional clearance to Malta’s 2015 Budget.

This decision, in parallel with the government’s repeated assurances on Malta’s strong economic performance and financial stability, should put the government in a better position to come out with a stronger budget which improved the standard of living for Maltese and Gozitan families while incentivising business towards further growth and job creation, it said.

The party said that in view of the declared adjustment of a meagre 58c, expected to result in a drop in real incomes for 2014 and 2015, it called on the government to compensate employees by reducing taxation further, particularly through the further lowering of income tax bands, without any compensatory increases in indirect taxation.

This, it said, would instil more confidence among consumers and alleviate pressures on the retail and trade sector, which were put in evidence through the weak sales as well as import and export levels being reported.

In parallel, the elderly deserved to benefit – as had been the case throughout the previous legislature – from the full cost of living increase, along with supplementary incomes to alleviate poverty in Malta.

The PN also called on the government to come up with incentive programmes tailormade for the manufacturing sector, which provided stability to the more than 30,000 people employed in this sector and created new opportunities for young people leaving the educational system.

It also expected the government to finance the necessary and ongoing improvements required in the health and education sectors.

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