Bolstering Maltese industry – Jason Azzopardi

Malta’s geographical position means that most of our manufacturing industry must import its raw materials and has to export its merchandise via container ships. Our industry employers do not have the luxury of getting their goods overland like their competitors on the European continent do. The result is, and has always been, more and more added transportation costs onto their cost base. Let me give one simple example of this. In 2016, a detailed study by one of Malta’s leading industry stakeholders found that while the Belgian and Italian industrial employer had merely an average of two per cent and six per cent respectively in transport costs, their Maltese counterpart had almost 20 per cent for the same transport. In other words, Maltese industry was not competing, and could not compete, on an equal playing field with its European competitors. It could never, due to Malta being permanently surrounded by the sea. Not because it is not able to but because of Malta’s location at the periphery of Europe, being an outermost island state. This was the scenario until COVID-19 struck hard in 2020. Post-COVID, the costs for our manufacturing industry, already beset by huge systematic...