Malta: Major investment project in private sector sees lowering of GDP forecast
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A delay in a single “major investment project in the private sector” has seen the Central Bank of Malta lowering the entire country’s Gross Domestic Product forecast for the year by 0.1 per cent.
The Bank, however, did not mention which delay to which specific project was affecting the country’s GDP on such a level.
This year’s GDP growth estimate had been forecast by the Bank, back in June, at 5.5 per cent, and it was lowered yesterday to 5.4 per cent with the Bank explaining, “Compared with the previous projections, GDP growth has been revised marginally downwards in 2019, due to a delay in a major investment project in the private sector.”
The Malta Independent reports “The delay to the “major investment project in the private sector” would be public knowledge, and one such delay to a project of such a magnitude that cropped up between the June projections and yesterday’s was the db Group’s €300 million project being developed, rather controversially, on the former Institute of Tourism Studies site in St George’s Bay.
Mata’s GDP in 2018 stood at €12.3 billion, meaning that the 0.1% impact on GDP that the Central Bank referred to yesterday is worth approximately €12.3 million to Malta’s GDP, whatever the project was.
Speculation doing the rounds yesterday was that it was either this particular project or a delay to another major construction project that was responsible for leaving such a dent in the country’s economic productivity levels.
The American University of Malta project at Zonqor is currently on hold, and some construction projects have been downsized, but it appears to be the City Centre project that most likely fits this particular bill.
The project was recently sent back to the drawing board by a judge because one of the Planning Authority board members, Matthew Pace, who had voted in favour of the approved was found to have had a conflict of interest in that he was selling the project’s apartments as a real estate agent.”
