Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca announced as Malta’s ninth President. She is the 9th President following George Abela who served Malta for the past five years. Coleiro-Preca is the second female President after Agatha Barbara had been appointed in 1982. The office of the President of Malta began when Malta became a republic within the Commonwealth on 13th December 1973, where Sir Anthony Mamo was appointed as the first president. A new president is appointed every 5 years, taking an oath in which he is sworn in to “protect, serve and defend” the Parliament and also appoints judiciary.

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Malta’s government has approved a controversial plan to attract “high value” people to the island by selling passports for €650,000 (£546,000).

The scheme is targeted at rich citizens from countries such as Russia and China and will allow them effectively to buy citizenship of the European Union, which Malta joined in 2004. It is expected to attract up to 300 people a year and is already understood to have had 45 potential applicants, raising the government €30 million in much-need revenues. But the Maltese opposition says that the process used to vet the applications lacks transparency, and is unhappy that the applicants’ identities will not publicly disclosed. Simon Busutil, the leader of the opposition Nationalist Party, has pledged to revoke the passports if his party is gets into power again. Mr Busuttil, who sits on a monitoring committee that has access to the applicants’ names, has also threatened to disclose their identities publicly, which could frighten off publicity-shy oligarchs. “As things stand, revealing the names is not illegal,” Mr Busutil told the Malta Today newspaper. “It’s the government’s action that is devaluating citizenship.”

The move comes five months after Malta’s prime minister, Joseph Muscat, was engaged in a dispute with the European Union over the numbers of illegal migrants coming into Malta via boats operated by people smugglers.He said the 17,000 people who had arrived illegally during the previous decade were putting an unacceptable strain on an island with a population of just 400,000 and little more land than the Isle of Wight. And he complained that Malta was being treated as “pushover” after the European Court of Human Rights, backed by EU commissioners, blocked moves by his government to fly one boatload of migrants back to Libya.

The reason for Malta’s rather more welcoming attitude to wealthy foreigners is largely financial. With such a small population, €30million is a major boost to the nation’s coffers, which are likely to be drained substantially by a promised 25 per cent cut in electricity rates next year. The government also hopes to raise the tiny island’s international profile by attracting celebrities or sports stars. But Dr Neil Falzon, the director of Malta’s Aditus human rights charity, said: “This scheme exclusively prioritises the financial contribution, and ignores the contribution of existing migrants, for whom citizenship is generally very difficult because the laws are very tough. “How about looking at the refugees already on the island, to see what talents they have to offer?”

Another Mediterranean EU member, Cyprus, launched a similar passport scheme earlier this year after being forced to impose a levy on foreign savers who had deposits on its collapsed international banking sector. In an attempt to stop them leaving, the government relaxed citizenship rules for any non-resident investor who had lost more than £2 million through paying the levy. The move was again targeted partly at wealthy Russians, whose savings account for nearly a third of Cyprus’s bank deposits.

Spain is also planning to offer foreigners residency permits if they buy houses worth more than €160,000 – approximately £128,500 – to try to revive the country’s property sector.

Malta, along with Italy and Greece, has borne much of the brunt of the EU’s two-decade immigration crisis, with gangs smuggling poor migrants from Africa to its shores in rickety boats to seek a new life in the European Union. 

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

Malta has registered a slight decrease in its unemployment rate, making it the fourth country with the lowest unemployment rate.The latest estimates published by the Eurostat show that Malta had a 6.4% unemployment rate in November, marking a 0.1% drop from October.

Malta was one of five countries in the European Union to register a change in the rate, while the unemployment rate across the 18 member states of the eurozone remained at a fixed 12%.

Over 12 months, between November 2012 and November 2013, Malta registered a 0.2% drop. By contrast in the Euro area, the rate of unemployment increased from 11.8% in November 2012 to 12.1% in November 2013.

Across the 28 member states of the EU, the rate increased from 10.8% to 10.9%.

Last year, Malta also moved up one place, ranking fourth, among the countries with the lowest unemployment rate.

During November 2013, youth unemployment stood at 13.7% compared to the 14.2% registered in November 2012.

Last September, Malta registered the rate of 0.6%. In September 2012, Malta almost had a 3% annual inflation rate

The European Union registered an annual inflation of 1.3% in September 2013, half of the inflation registered in the same period last year (2.7%). According to statistics provided by Eurostat, the highest inflation annual rates in September were observed in the UK (2.7%) and Estonia (2.6%), while the lowest were registered in Bulgaria (-1.3%) and Greece (-1%).

During the same period, Malta registered the rate of 0.6%. In September 2012, Malta almost had a 3% annual inflation rate. The Euro Area annual inflation also registered a decrease, from 2.6% in September 2012 to 1.1% in the same month this year.

The largest upward impacts to euro area annual inflation came from tobacco (+0.10 percentage points), electricity (+0.09) and accommodation services (+0.08), while fuels for transport (-0.30), telecommunications (-0.15) and medical & paramedical services (-0.07) had the biggest downward impacts.

Finance Minister of Malta Edward Scicluna on October 17 confirmed a plan to raise an extra €50 million in revenue from indirect taxes in the next Budget.

The minister, who pencilled in the Budget for November 4, said the increase was on the cards but “nothing is cast in stone”. Asked how this squared up with Labour’s pre-election pledge not to raise taxes, Prof. Scicluna argued that the Government could not lower revenue (as a result in the income tax cuts announced last year) when cutting the deficit.

Jānis Zelmenis, attorney-at-law and Honorary Consul of Malta, participated in a meeting of Malta Honorary consuls, which was held on July 28-30 to discuss the ways of increasing the impact of Malta on the international scene. The meeting, which is traditionally held once in two years, was attended by 100 honorary consuls of Malta from all over the world. The topic of this year’s meeting was enhancing international and economic profile of Malta.

When opening the meeting, the Foreign Minister of Malta, George Vella, emphasised the significant role of the honorary consuls in the country’s foreign policy. “The goal of the meeting is to strengthen economic and cultural interests of Malta in foreign countries. The agenda of the meeting has been drawn up so as to further our government’s efforts aimed at developing economic diplomacy. You are a part of the gold vein connecting Malta and Gozo with any other part of the world. With the help of your offices and services we, a small country, can reach countries and cities worldwide. Creating a fully-fledged diplomatic network is crucial to us from the aspect of both finance and human resources,” G.Vella said.

A small country like Malta virtually cannot afford permanent embassies, therefore it has established a worldwide network of Honorary consuls who ensure an efficient economic and consular representation of the country without remuneration,” emphasised Jānis Zelmenis, Malta’s Honorary Consul in Latvia.

At the meeting, the Honorary consuls offered several presentations about financial and economic development of Malta and its major cultural events. To the participants of the event also were given the opportunity to exchange views in eight panels led by high ranking officials of Malta. The panels were dedicated to the economic development of Malta, air and the sea transport, education and development of cinema industry.

As at December 2012, total foreign assets increased by €2.76 billion over the position prevailing at December 2011. Total foreign liabilities rose by €1.62 billion during the corresponding period, resulting in an overall increase in the International Investment Position (IIP) of €1.14 billion.The International Investment Position (IIP) refers to net foreign assets (NFA), and is the balance of foreign assets less foreign liabilities.The level of Malta’s total foreign assets abroad amounted to €47.35 billion as at the end of December 2012. Other Investment and Portfolio Investment accounted for 53.6 per cent and 42.3 per cent of total foreign assets respectively. The increase in Malta’s foreign assets was characterised mainly by a €2.83 billion increase in debt securities, primarily bonds and notes. This was partly offset by a €0.23 billion decline in Other Investment due to a fall in loans generated by the banking sector.During the period under review, Malta’s foreign liabilities were estimated at €45.65 billion. Accounting for 70.9 per cent of total foreign liabilities, Other Investment reached €32.35 billion from €31.22 billion recorded in December 2011. A rise in currency and deposits was the main contributor to this growth. Foreign direct investment, representing 27.0 per cent of total foreign liabilities, increased to €12.34 billion from €11.96 billion registered a year earlier.Source: Maltatoday.com.mt

An in-depth analysis by the European Commission of possible vulnerabilities of Malta’s financial sector found that the island does not face any immediate risks but warns that more monitoring and supervision is necessary to make sure that the property and banking sectors are kept in check.

It warned, however, that the long-term sustainability of public finances was at risk. Government debt amounted to 70.4 per cent of GDP in 2011, up from 60.9 per cent when Malta adopted the euro in 2008.

“The government is currently not experiencing problems with debt financing thanks to high domestic demand for issued securities, but sizeable state guarantees to state-owned companies, some of which not in a sound financial state, represent an important risk to the future dynamics of government debt. “Moreover, the long-term projections for both pension and healthcare expenditure in Malta significantly exceed the EU average.”

While commending the progress made in past years to lower the country’s deficit, the Commission reiterates the need for rapid reforms in the healthcare and pension sectors as these are putting the long-term sustainability of Malta’s public finances at risks. The in-depth analysis was carried out by the Commission following initial findings that the island was facing some economic risks, particularly in relation to its high private sector debt, current account balance and high government debt. While stating that its analysis showed that the situation was under control, it warned that more checks and balances were needed to avoid any possible slippages.

On the property market, the Commission states that despite some over-valuation and possible over-supply, “the property market does not appear to be exposed to an immediate risk of a bust”. Finding that over-valuation appears to have occurred in the years before Euro adoption, a correction has been taking place since then.

However, the Commission recommended “close monitoring of developments in the property market, in view of its exposure of the financial sector to it.” It also recommended that appropriate further measures are taken by the banking sector to strengthen loan-loss provisions in the domestically-orientated banks