The last two weeks my contribution has focussed on Vision 2015. In the first contribution I had written about the need of this vision as we need to rethink our economic model in the aftermath of the international economic recession.

I had also written that we need to own Vision 2015 as a country by bringing it closer to our lives and by making it more tangible. Last week I wrote about Vision 2015 and the issue of competitiveness. I argued that we need to allocate resources such that businesses operating in Malta strengthen their competitive edge in order to ensure the realisation of this vision, which seeks to identify new economic development opportunities based on Malta's unique assets towards higher value economic growth, job and wealth creation.

If one were to look a bit closer at what Vision 2015 seeks to achieve, one would immediately note the inclusive approach adopted by government. Wealth creation and higher value economic growth need not be seen as creating some club of exclusive untouchables. They should be seen rather as a way of making sure that, the wealth which is created, is enjoyed by all strata of the population. To add credence to this point of view, one needs only look at the economic sectors which Vision 2015 seeks to address.

It does not focus just one sector, whereby if one were to from part of that sector, then one would make considerable gains, while those that do not form part of that sector would be left behind.

Vision 2015 rightly focuses on a range of sectors which encompass a range of productive activities. Thus the employment opportunities would be diverse and economic growth would be distributed more fairly. This explains why I claim in the title of this week's contribution that Vision 2015 is all inclusive.

A cursory look at these sectors would immediately prove how true this is. The sectors that have been targeted include manufacturing, tourism, transportation and logistics, educational services, life sciences, creative industries and financial services and support.

For each sector a number of subsectors have been developed. Thus for example, tourism includes eco-tourism, health tourism, high-end tourism and short break travel. Interestingly enough there are also overlaps between one sector and another.

Thus, educational tourism overlaps between tourism and educational services, film editing and production overlaps between tourism and the creative industries, and yachting overlaps between tourism and transportation and logistics. Moreover, a number of sub sectors have been identified as niches especially suitable for Gozo.

I would say that none of the activities identified is totally absent from Malta nowadays and in this respect our task is made easier. To put it in very simple terms, we need to transform these activities, which we already have, into centres of excellence. We do not need to create anything new; we just have to do what we are doing today better. For example, the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, which is one of the identified sub-sector, has been present in Malta since the 1970s. What Vision 2015 is aiming for is that we become a recognised leader in this area of manufacturing.

The fact that government's vision covers such a wide range of activities, means that Malta would become less vulnerable to any single specific sector. Today, certain sectors enjoy such a big presence in the Maltese economy that it starts to become difficult to imagine how we can do without them. The all-inclusive approach of Vision 2015 tends to eliminate this vulnerability. We would become increasingly less dependent on a single company or a small cluster of companies and more dependent on what we can create as a nation.

As a corollary to this, one should also mention that although government is talking of creating centres of excellence, the nature of job opportunities will vary from less skilled to the very highly skilled. This would mean that we can still provide employment to a population that is made up of people with different abilities.

Vision 2015 is an exciting proposition. Unfortunately, it may get clouded by circumstances that are short term in nature. One does appreciate that these short term issues need to be addressed; however, one cannot ignore the medium and the long term. We can only create a good future for the next generations if we are intelligent enough to lay today the foundations for tomorrow's economy. Vision 2015 does just this!