Finance Minister Edward Scicluna will reject the "fabricated claims" against Malta's financial services sector during a news conference in Berlin this afternoon. 

The minister will refer to "baseless information", including video footage which appeared on Net TV, containing "fake news" from Maltese sources whose sole intention is to cripple the industry, according to a statement by the Department of Information.

It said the claims were being made by individuals obsessed with maliciously scoring points on the local political scene, with utter disregard for the truth and the livelihoods of thousands of families depending on an industry which has been painstakingly cultivated through cross-party collaboration over the years.

His decision to visit Berlin comes after German state minister Norbert Walter-Borjans last week described Malta as "the Panama of Europe" and claimed that a data leak has revealed information about 70,000 offshore companies in Malta.

After meeting the German media, Prof. Scicluna will also be holding talks with the German Federal Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble at the Federal Finance Ministry.