News | Sunday, 26 April 2009

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Gulia hits out at ‘deceptive’ GDP stats

Labour spokesperson for the self-employed Gavin Gulia lashed out at government on the discrepancy between its GDP forecasts and those of the European Commission and the Central Bank of Malta.
Gulia said that last year, “in a bid to make an impression, the Nationalist government gave the false impression that Malta’s economy is resilient when facing an international crisis.” Finance Minister Tonio Fenech had in fact forecasted an economic growth of 3% for 2008 and of 2.5% in 2009.
“In contrast to what government predicted for 2009, the EC is now predicting an economic growth of merely 0.7% for our country – with a massive discrepancy of 1.8%. This is leading to the continuous decrease in government credibility on the way it makes forecasts.”
He said that even the Central Bank was wrong in its growth forecasts, “although at least it had the courtesy to revise its position to match that of the EC. It is incredible how government is challenging both EC and CBM forecasts in keeping to its own calculations.”
Calling on government to state whether or not it agrees the CBM and EC forecasts, Gulia said government’s attitude was “at best wrong, and at worst a puerile attempt to deceive.”

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