VALLETTA, April 24 (Xinhua) -- Malta's Finance Minister Edward Scicluna said that the country needs to downshift the economic growth in the next few years, local media Malta Today reported on Wednesday.
Speaking at the Labour Party's Annual General Conference on Wednesday, Scicluna said Malta had not been prepared for unprecedented growth.
"The reason for this is that such growth puts pressure on infrastructure, which wasn't prepared for it," he explained.
Scicluna added that the government was preparing to send the financial forecast to the European Commission.
"We would be happy to retain the 6 percent growth per year, but this needs to go down to at least 5.7 percent," he said.
Figures released by Malta's National Statistical Office (NSO) showed that Malta's GDP went up by 6.6 percent in volume terms in 2018, which was described by Scicluna as growing far too quickly.
"We grew consistently from 2013 onwards and have now seen that last year ended with the third surplus in a row," Scicluna said. "By 2020, however, we hope to limit this growth and slow things down," the minister added.
