Thankfully for Malta, there is at least one policy area over which the two main political parties agree - the continued development of the industrial base as one of the key contributors to economic growth. Over time, however, the Nationalist Party appeared to have a stronger industrial policy than that of the Labour Party.
When, for example, the MLP and trade unionists under its wing were crying shame at the time labour-intensive textile firms were closing down, directly implying that this was the Nationalist government's fault, the government looked ahead and kept to its industrial policy of promoting a new phase in manufacturing industry - the attraction of firms that make goods of a higher value-added content.
This is seen as the best route for industry to take if the island wants to raise further economic growth and improve the people's standard of living. The implementation of this policy is already showing good results. So much so that, with the planned setting up of SmartCity, we are now already talking in terms of the possibility that the country would not be able to meet all the demand for workers trained in skills required by firms falling into this category.
To be fair, the MLP is saying it would encourage the attraction of both traditional and high-tech firms. Only the other day, the Labour leader was pledging his party's commitment towards the development of the ICT sector. There would, therefore, appear to be broad consensus over this, too, though it looks that the MLP will also go for traditional manufacturing.
This is well and good if it is meant to cover workers who, for one reason or another, are unable to enter the mainstream of those trained in specialised skills but, clearly, it pays the island more to go for the kind of industrial production that yields the greatest benefit. Alfred Sant said a Labour government would not deride factories or manufacturing industry; every entity, he said, was precious and would be sustained. Perhaps Dr Sant ought to have made a distinction between deriding and saying what firms are particularly suited for Malta at this stage of development.
Right at the time when the Labour leader was telling potential investors that Labour meant business, Public Investments and IT Minister Austin Gatt was announcing investment schemes, worth €213 million, that would run from this year to 2013.
Designed within the framework of the new Malta Enterprise Act, approved by Parliament in October, he said the new incentives were wider and more focused than those that had been made available under the Business Promotion Act. A strong point made by the minister was that, since 2004, industry generated 10,000 new jobs, which equalled to more than the number of jobs lost in the economic transition the country had gone through since then.
The economy has been in transition for a number of years now, with the services sector creating thousands of new jobs. Industry, too, is making progress in this transition period, with pharmaceutical, engineering and ICT firms providing the basis for the new phase of manufacturing.
Whichever party is elected to govern over the next five years, a greater effort would have to be made to remove any official bureaucracy that may be creating difficulties to both the services sector and to industry. In the drive to attract new direct foreign investment or to help existing local firms in any expansion plans that they may have, measures aimed at promoting efficiency and greater productivity would need to be given priority.
There is no shortage of ideas as to how such transition can be speeded up. The PN's industrial policy has been consistent throughout and people may already see for themselves that it works. Labour may not have much trust in locally-compiled statistics but the upward trend in economic growth is evident all round.