Last Updated on Thursday, 20 April, 2023 at 2:40 pm by Andre Camilleri
Families of four are saving up to €2,000 on energy bills a year,” because of subsidies granted by the current government, Environment, Energy, and Enterprise Minister Miriam Dalli said on Thursday.
“The PL creates opportunities of investment, careers, and generates wealth in order to help the youth in their studies, the elderly with their pensions, free healthcare, and to be there for businesses when they most need,” Dalli said at a Labour Party press conference.
Looking at the past 12 months alone, Malta Enterprise approved €75 million euros in new projects, both local and foreign-financed projects which amount to the creation of over 1,000 new careers over a period of 3 years, she said.
“Maltese and Gozitans are being given opportunities; jobs related to scientific fields, specialists in AI, coders, technical and medical fields, advanced manufacturing, and startups. These are the sorts of investments that we’re attracting to grow the extant economic sectors and create new sectors too,” Dalli said.
In the last 4 years, because of Malta Enterprise, the government approved €25 million in assistance for 125 start-ups thanks to various economic schemes, namely BeStart and Startup Finance. We have a number of start-ups that are emerging in new sectors; such as cyber, data security, digital games, medical cannabis, augmented reality, advanced manufacturing.
“We’re giving a clear direction to the economic development of Malta and Gozo, and we feel the trust that has been given to us by the people; we see this in the the good work that’s being undertaken by companies such as Torrent Pharma, who invested 22 million to develop the largest plant of its type in the EU, and the creation of jobs for 120 people,” said Dalli.
“From the pandemic, we learned the importance of diversification of the economy to make the economy more sustainable. The biggest asset our countries has is a workforce with strong skill set, as the educational strategy of our country is focused on science, technology, engineering and maths,” she said.
The PL always wanted to work in the interests of the public and will continue to do so for Maltese families and businesses. In fact, families of 4 are saving up to €2,000 on energy bills a year, she said.
“In 2022, we payed more than €300 million in energy subsidies, and this year we’re allocating more than €400 million for energy subsidies.”
The PN wants to remove this financial aid, and this is the difference between the two parties; the PL always thinks about how to increase people’s quality of life and the PN tries to undermine the conditions of families and workers. While the PN froze pensions, the PL increases them year after year and while the PN decreased children’s allowances, the PL increase them, said Dalli.
Labour MP Malcolm Paul Agius Galea said that “on 1 May, we celebrate the workers, who for us remain the centre of every decision that we always make.”
