I am getting the impression that by now Clyde Caruana is either totally corrupt like the rest of them or totally oblivious and incredibly incompetent. These comments of his are rather embarrassing and bizarre, to say the least.
Malta doesn’t depend on construction and even at its peak, the construction and real estate industries barely made more than 10% of the GDP together.
There is no economic transition to be made from construction to real estate to other sectors. This is an illusion and fantasy. What needs to change are planning policies and the rent-seeking regime which allows the construction industry to do whatever it wants. Basically, Labour needs to lose power and Clyde Caruana is part of the problem and not part of the solution. The Labour Party survives on donations from construction and tourism industry magnates. It’s actually the Labour Party that needs to lose its dependence on the construction industry and not the country.
In order to bring down property prices, the government may actually use the option of growing the construction industry strategically while reducing the real estate component or in other terms, increasing the supply and reducing the demand. This can be done with voluminous liquidity provisions from a major bank. Supply of housing can also increase strategically and intelligently with smart high-rises instead of taking up more ODZ land.
Leave a Reply