CBM optimistic on growth prospects, wary of Ukraine war, Air Malta restructuring impact / Malta News Briefing – Wednesday 27 April 2022

Updated 1311

Central Bank optimistic on growth prospects, wary of Ukraine war, Air Malta restructuring impact: The Central Bank of Malta is projecting that the Maltese economy will regain lost ground this year, recovering from the pandemic with a 6% growth, but has warned that the restructuring at Air Malta may yet take its toll.  In a press conference this morning, Governor Edward Scicluna said that the country’s financial position was likely to remain in the red at least until 2023. The Bank said that risks to its fiscal projections mainly affect the rest of this year when certain outlays could be deficit-increasing. These risks relate to the likelihood of additional COVID-related support, the impact of Air Malta’s restructuring on the likelihood of state aid to the airline as well as support needed to cushion the impact of rising commodity prices following the conflict in Ukraine. Scicluna spoke at length on inflation, saying that it will remain high this year and will go down in 2023, but warned that prolonged geopolitical tensions in Europe could also lead to higher imported inflation than envisaged by the European Central Bank.

Yorgen Fenech denied bail: The Court has once again rejected Yorgen Fenech’s request for bail. Fenech, who stands accused of masterminding the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia five years had claimed human rights breaches because he has not been released on bail since his arrest in 2019. Over the years since his arrest, Fenech’s lawyers have filed several bail requests and related constitutional cases demanding his release. These requests have consistently been denied by the courts.

Covid-19 Update: Three more persons have passed away after being infected with coronavirus, health authorities reported, taking the death tally to 696. There are currently 4,153 active cases after 189 new positive cases were reported on Wednesday.

Morning Briefing

President launches second state of the nation survey

Findings from a second survey to grasp where people stand on numerous issues such as politics, religion and family life will be discussed in a national conference in June. President George Vella launched the survey, which has been dubbed an exercise to determine the state of the nation. The president said that a lot had been learnt from last year’s survey and he intended to continue building on that progress. “The themes and subjects put to the people will be practically the same, however, the debate will not be tied just to the findings. These will open up the discussion which will go beyond simply analysing the survey results,” Vella said. (Maltatoday)

28,000 people struggle to make ends meet
Some 28,000 people in Malta struggle to meet their basic needs and are considered to be severely deprived according to an EU-wide metric, a survey published yesterday has found. The 5.5% rate of severe material and social deprivation is the highest registered in Malta since 2015 and continues an upward trend that followed the record 3% rate registered in 2018. Rising poverty rates are also being registered for those in less dire straits: a third of the population could afford a one-week annual holiday away from home last year, and 15.7% of those surveyed said that their household would not be able to settle an unexpected financial expense of €770 and over. (Times of Malta)

Covid-19 update: There were 259 new cases of Covid-19 and 372 people have recovered. One new death was recorded. Active cases now stand at 4,420, down from yesterday’s 4,534.