"Implementing Lisbon at national level is an important and ambitious project, consequently requiring a joint national effort from all social partners to be successful in the short timeframes," FOI president Adrian Bajada said in his welcoming address to the MBB seminar entitled 'Surviving global competition: business priorities for growth and employment' last Thursday.
Mr Bajada, the outgoing president of the Malta Business Foundation, added: "Government must engage with the social partners at MCESD level to secure the inception of a co-ordinated communication strategy in terms of raising awareness of the crucial competitiveness issues at stake and the absolute need for staggered reforms to avoid unnecessary economic jolts and concomitant expensive social costs."
He emphasised that "the implementation of the NRP measures should pursue a forward-looking strategic path whereby a concerted reform drive is to be undertaken within a well-studied, discerned analysis of the socio-economic predicament Malta will be in over the medium to long term (that is between now and 2008 and beyond) time span".
He also pointed out that "only in this way can Malta's international competitiveness be significantly bolstered, thus indeed resulting in a better quality of life" and that "only in this way can Malta really excel regionally and internationally".
The seminar was organised just after the European Commission presented the official evaluation reports of the EU-25 National Reform Programmes last January. In this respect, the seminar informed and updated both members of the business community, as well as the policy-makers and other stakeholders, on the business perspectives and implications of Malta's Lisbon Strategy.
It also focused on a number of issues related to whether the implementation of the National Reform Programme 2005-2008 is sufficient to survive tough global economic competition.
The other speakers at the seminar included: Omar Cutajar, junior policy advisor at the Malta Business Bureau; John Aquilina, Management Efficiency Unit (OPM) CEO; Doris Sammut, joint managing director, Greenskip Group; David Spiteri Gingell, chairman of the Malta Council for Science and Technology; Aldo Calleja, managing director of Waldonet; Sue Vella, ETC CEO; Martin Spiteri, director of policy development at the Ministry for Competitiveness and Communications; Marie Louise Mangion, director of EU affairs and policy development, Ministry for Tourism and Culture; Steinthor Palsson, managing director, Actavis Malta Ltd; and Peter J. Sant, senior economics officer (EU affairs), Bank of Valletta. Competitiveness and Communications Minister Censu Galea delivered the closing address.
The seminar presentations embraced themes like female labour market participation and female entrepreneurship and the constraints that adversely impact on the balance between work and family life; R&D and innovation in which it was highlighted that a draft national R&D strategy would be available by March; the knowledge-based economy and Malta's performance in this aspect; labour market reform and active labour market policies, and the role of ETC in the overall scenario; better regulation for businesses, and government efforts to reduce the burden of regulation; travel and tourism; Malta's manufacturing potential; and SME access to finance.
Great emphasis was also made on the development of human capital and related issues, such as skill formation and the matching of skills availability with labour market requirements.
It was also stressed that, as a small country, Malta needs to enhance its self-confidence to realise the best of opportunities and thus turn the objective of higher growth and more and better jobs into reality.