There must be something wrong in Malta’s media’s values. Whereas Cyrus Engerer captured the headlines in politics and general gossip, Central Bank Governor Josef Bonnici has gone practically unnoticed.

His contribution in last week’s The Sunday Times of Malta (‘Encourage growth through lower rates of interest’) should by now have been in open discussion.

Four excerpts deserve mention:

“... average lending rates to Maltese businesses exceed five per cent, compared with 4.6 per cent in the stressed country category and 2.8 per cent for the non-stressed,” the latter including Malta.

“... these are not credit conditions that sustain economic growth.”

Our banks have “a return on equity of nearly 20 per cent when compared to 5.8 per cent for the average EU banks”.

“Negative credit growth...” everywhere, except in the household mortgage market. And it is not “due to insufficient demand by borrowers”.

Should banks’ profitability continue to trump economic policy?