Prime Minister Joseph Muscat this morning played down the fact that the Chinese company carrying out a feasibility study on the possibility of building a bridge to Gozo was blacklisted by the World Bank.

“When the Chinese Government offers its biggest company to carry out a feasibility study for free, and you also have another feasibility study being carried out... I think we had to accept all these things.”

Asked if the Government carried out a basic due diligence exercise to make sure the company was not blacklisted, Dr Muscat said this type of assessment must be carried out with the “end beneficial owner”.

“The end beneficial owner is the Chinese Government. We know its global standing and we feel we should work with it,” he said, pointing out that the Government was having “wide-ranging” discussions with China on possible other projects.

Asked to give more details about these other discussions, Dr Muscat said it was not the Government’s style to announce projects before they materialised.

Dr Muscat was speaking to the press after a visit to Nexia BT, an audit and consultancy firm employing 60 people which has moved into new and bigger offices in San Ġwann.