Measuring the Maltese economy's performance against our competitors is very important.

The World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index provides the instrument to enable us to make this comparison and has wide acceptance.

These statistics should be put to good use by our economic managers and line ministries.

In fact they should schedule their programmes and strategies so that we can move up in the index.

These are statistics investors monitor and build their estimates and advice upon.

Unfortunately, in Malta we tend to compare with our own performance in a previous period.

This is not enough as we might, in practice, be moving backwards when compared with our competitors.

Competition and competitiveness is a though game, it has no rest. The successful business is the one that is sure that everyone in its team is conscious all the time of this fact.

Only state bureaucrats running monopolies believe that all they have to do is add up the costs of their service, add a profit mark-up and impose the price on costumers by Legal Notice. The electricity tariffs issue is all about this. No private owned company in a competitive market would have acted the way Enemalta did.

Competitiveness is something we have to work on all the time. The government must have this as its basic philosophy.

It is not acceptable that the World Economic Forum places Malta at 52nd from 131 economies, and within the list of the most problematic factors for doing business in Malta we continue to find areas that are within the capabilities of the public service to resolve.

Topping the list of issues that are hampering Malta's global competitiveness is the inefficient government bureaucracy. Access to finance is a high second.

Tax rates, restrictive labour regulations, inadequate educated workforce, tax regulations and inflation are also prime issues.

These are issues that we must resolve. It's time someone starts using the hard stick. Small steps forward are not enough.

In the private sector, the people who create the wealth never sit pretty.

They are always striving to become more competitive. The armchair critic thinks that they are simply striving to become richer. It is however an urge in business people that is necessitated by a higher motive: that of being successful. People don't go into business to be failures. They go into business because their entrepreneurial zeal wants them to be successful.

To be successful they must compete. To compete they watch themselves, the systems they use, the product or services they provide, the quality and training of the people they employ, sales techniques, marketing technique, and all that it takes to make a successful business. But, above all, they watch the competition.

In 2006-2007 Malta scored 51st on the World Forum Competitiveness Index in a league of 122 economies. In 2007-2008 Malta scored 56th out of 131 economies. In 2008-2009 Malta scored 52nd out of 131 economies. We moved forward but 52nd is not a comfortable place to be in.

It is of great interest that our economy is classified as an economy that is innovation-driven. Economies are placed in three stages of competitiveness development.

The first stage economies are factor-driven. It's a tall order. But using a measurable approach used by others helps us to move on, area by area. It helps policy makers to know what to aim for and how to measure performance.

The second stage of development puts together the economies that are considered to be efficiency-driven. The third stage of development puts together countries that like Malta are considered to be innovation-driven. The countries that are moving from one stage of development to the other are placed in transitory stages. Each economy is assessed according to the same set of competitiveness pillars. Within each pillar there are a number of criteria on which scores are made so that each country can be assessed by the same measuring rod.

Today it's essential we manage our economy in a measured way. This is my gospel. We need to have more people up there who know that performance, efficiency, competitiveness is the only language that matters.

When the winds blow, as they are doing now from all angles of the globe, and economies are being squeezed down, it is the fittest that survive. During hard times the competitive invest more and win more not less as markets pull towards the fittest. It is not just a question of being resilient.

We will survive and grow more if we become more competitive. This is the gospel we need to preach. Here, in all our work, in the public administration, in the national parliament, and in the European Parliament, the language our representatives need to speak is one: competitiveness.

Mr Farrugia is the Director General, GRTU, Malta Chamber of Small SMEs. He is contesting the European Parliament elections on behalf of the PN/EPP-ED.