Only days after this newspaper said that nothing seemed to be going the government's way, the Prime Minister, in an apparent direct reply to this comment, announced that his administration was negotiating what he described as major investments that should translate into hundreds of jobs. He gave no details of these "major investments", but said he hoped the talks would be concluded in the coming weeks.
When the economic situation is now so pressing, with key economic sectors casting gloom ahead of the presentation of the government's budget for 2010, the news ought to be most welcome, but would it not have been better for the Prime Minister to conclude the talks first before announcing anything? Dr Gonzi may have just wanted to instil a dose of confidence into an otherwise glum economic atmosphere. However, only concrete developments would help clear away the gloom.
When one or two ministers said the worst of the slowdown was over, Labour lost no time in hammering the point that, once this was so, they expected the government to produce a good budget for the next financial year. "Good", in their view, obviously meant a tax cut and other benefits. But, as expected, the government took a step back and quickly remarked that, even though the worst might be over, the country was not out of the woods yet.
Reports of a slowdown in the SmartCity project at Ricasoli did not help matters. The government had trumpeted the project to the four winds, and raised high expectations. But it would seem that, in the wake of the economic slowdown, the promoters might have stalled a bit in their Malta project. Finance Minister Tonio Fenech admitted there might have been a slowdown as the investors assessed their investments across the world, but pointed out that the promoters had confirmed their full commitment to their project. Indeed, he went on to say they had also confirmed there were "good prospects". Not only that, but according to the minister, there was a "healthy appetite" by potential foreign investors for Malta. This is encouraging too, but are there in fact tangible proposals or is all this pie in the sky? Time will tell.
After so much delay in the implementation of the government's dockyard privatisation plan, it has now been announced that the government is to start talks with the preferred bidder for the ship-repair yard, an Italian company. Hopefully, the government will now strike a good bargain, not only to fully re-activate, as soon as possible, what ought to be a thriving asset, but also to help boost its coffers at a time when revenue has taken a blow. Obviously, it is more important to ensure that the yard is entrusted to the right bidder than to raise the money for the exchequer, however much this is required in these rough times.
Other good and not-so-good news were the rejection by the EU of a proposal to provisionally co-sponsor an initiative taken by Monaco that would have meant a ban on international trade in tuna, and the announcement that only six EU member states have accepted to resettle refugees and other protected immigrants from Malta. The latter move might be considered a step forward, and to an extent it is, but considering all the lip service paid to the concept of solidarity within the EU, one would have expected a far greater response than that shown so far.