Finance Minister Prof. Edward Scicluna discusses the recently-published Commission In-Depth Review Report, which delivered a positive assessment of the state of the Maltese economy and public finances.

Prof. Scicluna explains that in the same way medical tests assess a patient’s health in an attempt to identify and diagnose illnesses; such reports assess an economy’s overall health and attempt to identify weaknesses.

The Finance Minister explains however that, as the Commission itself remarked in its In-depth Review Report, Malta’s economy was given a clean bill of health, as the macro-economic risks which had emerged a year earlier have since been contained.

Prof. Scicluna notes that this improvement was based on trends which indicate that private debt is declining; the public debt is being managed in such as way as to make it less vulnerable to risks, and the financial strength of Maltese households.

Prof. Scicluna said that in this regard, Malta’s success in containing its macroeconomic risks is all the more notable given how other, larger countries, have had considerable trouble in doing so.

– Wednesday, 19th March, 2014