A business agenda to the government – that is how the Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry has, quite appropriately, described its recent document setting out an economic vision for Malta. It is by far one of the most important reports to be published in recent times and ought to serve as a blueprint for development.

With the help of no fewer than 20 chairpersons and chief executive officers from leading firms, the Chamber has managed to knock into shape a set of recommendations that ought to help the country’s administration and Malta focus on what is urgently needed to get the economy moving to a higher level of development.

Maybe in some instances the Chamber is aiming far too high considering the stage in which the country is in at present, but in quite a number of other areas, the way ought to be clear for a steady improvement if only a greater effort is made by the administration and all the government agencies and regulatory bodies. For Malta to serve as a hub of economic services, it would need to upgrade its facilities even further.

Taking just one example, to establish Malta as a global and regional health provider of excellence, as the Chamber is recommending, the island would first need to have adequate facilities. As the situation stands at present, its general hospital is not even big enough to meet the country’s ordinary needs. However, generally speaking, the Chamber has put its finger on the right weaknesses, picking three particular areas in which the country is losing its comparative advantage – human resource capital, English and the multilingual skills base, and agility through smallness.

Its assessment on the first provides some disturbing facts. In its view, the economy’s demand for competencies and skills in all economic sectors is not being adequately supplied by the higher and further education institutions. The country has been aware of this for quite some time now, but what is equally very worrying is that the new supply of human capital and talent in the market is lacking in terms of discipline, work ethos, soft skills, and diligence when compared to workers of a previous generation of workers.

This is bad for the economy and for the country, and special efforts would need to be made at all levels of the educational system to correct the trend. Such serious shortcomings go diametrically against the Chamber’s wish to see the country working harder to cultivate a culture of excellence. Many abroad have the impression that, since English is an official language in Malta, the people can speak the language well. This is not quite correct any longer, and “this added edge over competing countries” is fast being lost.

Another damaging factor is that, “despite years of investment in public service reform, e-government and better regulation improvements, the Malta business climate has become more, rather than less, ponderous”.

If the government sticks to its present determination to get to grips with bureaucratic bottlenecks, the country can expect some tangible results in this direction and, maybe, be able to climb back a few places in competitiveness indexes. However, there is much to be done to make Malta a more efficient operating base than it is now.