The Labour Party is studying a number of ideas which export firms have been encouraging it to support.

Speaking during the GRTU’s national conference “Facing Today’s Economic Realities – Bringing home the European Reality to Small Businesses”, economy spokesman Gavin Gulia said one such idea was to convince the government to keep the level of the utility tariffs affordable and realistic, especially at times when the price of oil was significantly down, and hovering at pre-surcharge levels.

Another idea was to explore the possibility of introducing assistance on export transport costs to and from Malta.

Dr Gulia said that social and economic progress would only be safeguarded if the concerns of SMEs were continuously heeded and new and effective proposals were offered for this segment to grow.

Malta, Dr Gulia said, needed to start looking into new ways of reducing cash-flow strains to improve working capital and liquidity.

Banks had to be encouraged to refrain from introducing hefty stealth charges associated with the provision of finance capital to SME’s and the government had to intervene to ensure that banks fully reflected ECB adjustments in interest rates.

The possibility of payments due by the government to SMEs to be offset against tax payments which the business had pending with the government, also had to be examined.