Shiv Nair is Muscat’s passport to China.

It’s not the change in value which is relevant here. It is whether the imported parts are sufficiently “transformed” when assembled – which they probably won’t be as the rules for determining the origin of a product are normally pretty strict.

Additionally, there will be duty to pay on the parts when these are imported into Malta from China. This idea of assembling solar panels in Malta does not make sense.

Sir, you seem to have cracked Konrad Mizzi’s fine print.

When everything is improvised and its internal market a joke, these won’t be manageable.

Now that technology’s showing how products can be made at home and still remain accessible to all, China’s in deep trouble.

They’re in an industrial rut, following the other gargantuan failure, convince the millions to displace themselves to what have become ghost cities.

So basically they can’t convince the population to go to their ‘cities’, nor will these acquire the ‘planned wealth’ awaiting. No market, no human resources available to man their planned factories, buy in their malls, nothing.

That’s what happens when plans and agreements are made far in advance. 2010 is very long ago in this day and age.

Muscat’s propensity to rest on his laurels and delegate everything to chance will be his undoing.

Even because Muscat’s Malta has to scramble to compete with Cameron’s Britain doing something similar.

And now that Suntech’s gone, Merkel doesn’t have to worry about protecting Germany’s domestic industries, something she was reluctant to do until a month ago.

Throw in France and Japan doing their bit to disrupt China’s inroads into European energy, they’ve just signed a nuclear agreement with Turkey, and the mix becomes critical.

More fool Britain. And Malta.

Time to choose, the EU or out. Guess what Cameron said.

We already have a ‘fabbrika tal-elf’ – PL has been producing elves en masse to take over social media and comments boards.

There is a logic. If the China assembled product undergoes sufficient change in value by doing some production operations in Malta, then these products will get the CE mark. Therefore, these products would be eligible to free movement within the EU and NOT subject to duties, import taxes and anti-dumping regulations. The irony is that the PN administration had negotiated these deals back in the late 1980s early 1990s.

The market for these products is not Malta – it’s Europe. And, I will bet you anything that the MLP government will arrange building regulations in such a way as to favour the Malta produced product.

On a related note, there is a significant catch to the new fixed tariffs: I can bet you anything that the fixed prices are entirely subsidised rather than reflecting improved procurement and production/distribution efficiencies. (HAve the PN said anything to the effect rather than welcome the change?)

Buying influence was China’s plan all along. To China, Malta is not a market. It’s a tool.