Despite being one of the smallest countries within the EU, Malta's open but diverse economy - based upon financial and other related services, tourism and higher value-added manufacturing activity - has proved not only to be a success in the good times but an anchor of stability in the more recent difficult times. Although dependent on the major European economies, with EU countries accounting for two-thirds of our exports and also providing the lion's share of our tourists, the level of recession in Malta in 2009 was half the European average - the country's economic growth was -2%. But while it would have been unrealistic to expect that we could escape the impact of the international recession, not all sectors were affected to the same extent, and a few, such as financial services, continued to grow, attracting international business and investment throughout 2009.
The damage could have been much greater. However, the measures we took to shore up our hardest hit industries of tourism and manufacturing proved successful in containing the extent of the slowdown, safeguarding jobs and encouraging further investment. Our 2010 budget reinforces these efforts, introducing targeted initiatives to boost investment throughout industry sectors and encourage job creation. We are now beginning to see improvements in our economic performance across all sectors. And, while we ended the year with negative growth of 1.9%, initial indications for the first months of 2010 are maintaining a positive trend.
