Economic recovery plan took FATF verdict into consideration – Miriam Dalli

The Government is not planning to change any tactics in terms of economic recovery when it comes to enterprises, as it took the Financial Advisory Task Force (FATF) assessment, among other issues, into account when drafting the recovery plan, Minister for Energy and Enterprise, Miriam Dalli, told The Malta Independent.

On Wednesday, Malta received the bad news that it had been grey listed by the FATF. Prime Minister Robert Abela said that although he feels that the decision was “unjust”, he will accept the decision and work to get the country back to the white list.

In the meantime, this grey listing could have adverse effects on the economy of Malta from a number of strands, including the financial services, banking and gaming.

However, Dalli said that the Government is not going to change anything from the tactic of economic recovery as they had taken this situation into consideration. “We are absolutely not going to change the tactic … because with the previsions that we have made, we always took into considerations the situations that our country would be going through,” she said.

“The fact that our country was going through a monitoring and surveillance process through Moneyval and FATF is not something that happened from one day to the next, but rather something that we were aware of.”

It is for this reason, the Minister said, that the Government will “proceed with the roadmap we have started to follow.”

“What I can assure is that after this week’s developments, we have more energy and determination to attract more strong investments so that we continue to help with the economic recovery in our country and continue creating more jobs of high quality,” she remarked.