NEWS | Wednesday, 09 March 2008

English press ditches Malta as a holiday destination

Maltese Government protests

As a consequence to the British pound sterling slipping 13 per cent to the euro, both The London Times as well as The Guardian have recommended their readers to choose South Africa over Malta, in view of the fact that the island has become ‘pricy’.
“One destination to avoid is Malta,” The Times’ wrote. “Prices rose by about 10% with its changeover to the euro, so, combined with the fall in sterling, Malta has effectively become 17% more expensive in the space of four months.”
But speaking to sister paper Maltatoday Midweek, Finance Minister Tonio Fenech described the comment as one “that can be harmful to Malta’s interests”.
“The 10% figure is absolutely untrue. A recently published document by Eurostat reveals that provisional calculations show that in both Cyprus and Malta the total (one-off) impact of the changeover on headline inflation, during and immediately after the changeover, was probably between 0.2 and 0.3 percentage points.
“In Malta the annual harmonised indices of consumer prices (HICP – the EU’s indicator for inflation) rate for January 2008 was 3.8%.
In the EU as a whole, the HICP also increased substantially in late 2007, with an annual inflation rate of 3.4% being reached in February 2008.”
The national statistics offices also quote January’s HICP annual rate at 3.8% and the 12-month moving average at 1.2%.
Fenech said the government will be contacting the Times in order to seek redress for the publication of such incorrect information.