Thoughts from The Malta Chamber of Commerce ahead of the Financial Stimulus Package announcements

The Malta Chamber of Commerce looks forward to tonight’s announcement of the financial stimulus package to assist businesses become more resilient and grow.

Wage subsidies which were introduced in the past weeks to help preserve business networks need to be retained and only released in a planned manner that respects gradual development of customer confidence and an expected poor tourism economy.

From tonight’s announcements, The Malta Chamber expects initiatives to reduce further operational costs for enterprises such as rent.  This will allow businesses to concentrate their resources on internal restructuring, research of the new-market and investment in innovation that will help them sustain and re-develop the competitivity they had worked so hard for.

Through this package, Government is also needing to stimulate aggregate demand, in order to mitigate the reduction expected to be generated by the tourism sector.

This financial package should prioritise an opportunely-timed regeneration of the economy by assisting all business, whether small, medium or large with the best professional advice to re-engineer their models and develop exciting new business-plans that reflect the new expected realities. This was a central recommendation made by The Malta Chamber in its document ‘Making a Success of the New Norm’, a document that was full of economic regeneration initiatives which was presented to Government in May.

Furthermore the country should embrace the opportunities presented by the Covid-19 crisis such as the acceleration to digitise the economy including e-commerce, teleworking, revamped e-gov services, as well as a strong direction towards a low carbon economy.  This is expected to ensure that all is directed towards a long lasting and sustainable social, economic and environmental national vision set within robust health ambitions.