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. 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 at a slower pace when compared with our competitors.
Competitiveness is something we have to work on all the time. 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. People don't go in business to be failures. They go in 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 techniques, and all that it takes to make a successful business. But, above all, they watch the competition.
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.