Malta was still in recession, Labour MEP Edward Scicluna argued in a statement today.

"Every family in Malta would wish to believe that during the last quarter of last year Malta did indeed come out of the recession. Unfortunately this is not yet the case. If the Prime Minister would have asked the NSO for a breakdown of this increase in GDP he would have been told the following.

"Between the last quarter of 2009 and the last quarter of 2008 in nominal terms (since deflators are not yet published for all the reported data) public and private consumer expenditure fell by €6 million; investment fell by €21 million, receipts from exports of manufacture and tourism together fell by €42 million, compensation of employees fell by €14 million," Prof Scicluna, an economist, said.

"What did go up were gross operating surpluses. These rose by €33 million. But then these were made up of an increase of €37 million in the operating surpluses of banks and other financial intermediaries and a fall in €4 million elsewhere in the rest of the economy.

"Alas, if truth be told, we have to wait a bit more before announcing that our economy is truly out of the recession", Prof Scicluna said.