Well, the ‘big news’ of the next few days can only be something to do with this
Speaking at a political event in Luqa today, the Labour leader said he is confident his party will win the majority of votes in the upcoming European Parliament elections. So am I. That’s pretty much a given and hardly worth discussing.
The real news is this. Muscat also said that his government is working to increase and expand its collaboration with China “through investment in the services sector”.
It is also looking for “opportunities” with the USA, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait through bilateral agreements.
He said it is his government’s “strategic plan” to “focus” on those countries. “Europe will remain our natural market but we will not remain dependent on it. We have to expand our horizons,” he said, adding that there is “huge potential” in the financial, maritime and aviation fields.
“There could be an opportunity for Malta because China plans to go international with its currency,” he said.
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My God, what are these ominous rumblings? That we’ll be leaving the euro zone and suddenly adopting the Yen? Please someone tell me I’m wrong.
Renminbi.
Rembibi
You can’t be far off the mark, China being Muscat’s natural home more than mainstream Europe ever was or ever will be.
You can’t be far off the mark, China being Muscat’s natural home more than mainstream Europe ever was or ever will be.
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No, that would be suicide. Malta would sink like a brick. They know that the PN’s biggest victory can never be erased, that is unless the eurozone as a whole were to dissolve; that is a different scenario. The euro ties us to the core of Europe.
No, the PL just does this to put one up the democracies — which they naturally despise — and to cause division.
Of the countries quoted above most are either Islamofascist, theocracies or a mixture of the two, bar the USA of course which was probably just mentioned for the sake of it. It too is a country the PL despises.
Just read one edition of the Orizzont if you need proof of this. Not to mention the hysterical anti-Israel stance (and that is putting it mildly).
Dear Erika
1 – For Joseph Muscat Europe is the natural market because (a) we are physically located just under Italy, and (b) because the Maltese electorate screwed him and voted in favour of joining the European Union and eventually the Eurozone. He does not feel part of Europe but will exploit to his advantage the fact that we are (just as he exploits everyone around him to his advantage).
2 – Every EU country trades outside Europe, but the EU has a common trade policy with other trading blocks and major trading partners (like China). However, no EU country prostitutes itself to a competing trading partner of the EU so that that partner (like China) can circumvent the natural trading arrangements and screw the EU from within.
3 – Japan’s currency is the Japanese Yen, and China’s fictitious currency is the Chinese Renminbi. Fictitious because there are capital controls in China so that the Government keeps the currency artificially low so that it can screw the other trading partners on artificial currency competitiveness.
The offshore version is traded in Hong Kong. Who knows maybe China is planning to trade its currency from within its major trade competitor.
Have you asked yourself what advantage that could give to China and disadvantage to the EU. But it would take a real prostitute of a member country to allow that to happen.
4 – The ominous rumblings that you are hearing now are my fear that another sovereign state is slowly and subtly taking control of my own country, and we’ll celebrate it on bill boards and expensive media splashes (that we’ll pay for!). Hurray, how nice.
et quoque apud te
A Chinese stock exchange in Malta.
There have been rumours for some time now.
What stage has the Expression of Interest in the Marsa Shipbuilding site reached? Are the preferred bidders due to be selected?
Times of Malta is reporting the “good news” in its headlines.
Sounds like an episode from the Old Testament.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140428/local/good-news-in-coming-days-pm.516842
The newspaper is also reporting the prime minister saying that “the government had created nine jobs for every person on the unemployment register over the past year.”
Am I right in saying that there are around 7,600 persons on the unemployment register? So did the government create 68,400 jobs in one year?
There are persistent rumours that HSBC has been trying to sell its shares in its Maltese subsidiary. The buyer was always likely to be either a Chinese or a Gulf bank.
It looks as if it’s going to be Chinese, with Konrad Mizzi’s wife being given some of the credit for arranging the deal.
Tanata
Don’t tell me the test market is going to be Malta?
1st in Europe?
How compliant.
In the Golden Years during election time Gaddafi was Mintoff’s trump card.
In the run-up to the EUROPEAN Parliament election, amoral Communist China is going to lend a helping hand to an amoral and unprincipled prime minister.
Can anyone imagine any other European prime minister telling his people in an EP electoral campaign that they should vote for his party’s candidates because an Asian contract is going their way, or that the country has just struck oil?
Muscat is going to suspend the Constitution and declare himself Prime Minister for life. Malta is to become a province of China: Shanghai fil-Mediterran.
Expand our horizons my foot! It’s more likely expanding his waist and some friend’s pocket.
I feel so disgusted about this Ta’ Hagrat affair and how the newspapers didn’t pick up how this government intends to spin it.
After MEPA had in recent years, refused permits for a fireworks factory quite a distance away and recently, a Via Sagra proposed by the Local Council, on the grounds that they would disrupt the views of the temples, the new Board goes and approves a permit right next to the site.
Now apparently the government is trying to purchase the plot of land. Just imagine what we will have to pay to recompensate the owner.
It’s one thing to requisition an useless piece of land, and another which has a development permit.
The inauguration of the interconnector with the European grid . It was due to be commissioned in March 2014. – while still no signing of the new power plant contract ?
I am pretty sure that after his programme Made in Malta where Muscat constantly bragged against Malta’s EU application, he will soon be putting up a new programme : Made in China.
Made in Brussil.
‘he is confident his party will win the majority of votes’. Mela m’ghadux l-underdog ?
Il-giddieb ghomru qasir. Tant jigdeb li jinsa xi jkun qal u jinqabad li qed jigdeb b’dak li jghid.
A loose translation – A liar’s life is a short one – He lies so much that he forgets what he says, thus he is caught in his own lies.
Can anyone here explain to me why Air Malta had two adverts in newspapers yesterday selling off all its shares in Osprey Insurance?
Offers are being accepted through the Department of Privatisation at the Ministry of Finance and the deadline has been extended till 30th May.
“The real news is this. Muscat also said that his government is working to increase and expand its collaboration with China “through investment in the services sector”.
It is also looking for “opportunities” with the USA, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait through bilateral agreements.”
He threw in some other countries for good measure.
Sai Mizzi is going to be partly credited with the success. (Can we at least have her office address or is she working from her bedroom?)
Is the financial sector going to take this quietly? Se tirrangana, Guz.
Muscat should be cornered and asked what his position on Syria is.
I bet kev doesn’t approve.
At this rate I suspect Muscat will say oil has been struck before any digging has even started.
Air China ‘invests in’ Air Malta and saves the national airline, whereupon it is the national airline no longer.
This seems to be the most likely candidate since it seems to involve AirMalta. A recap: http://www.ch-aviation.com/portal/news/23494-government-denies-rumours-of-air-china-interest-in-air-malta
Chinese colonisation of Malta by stealth – to undiscerning quick-buck idiots.
A strategic geo-political move by the Chinese which they could only do with a tiny country like Malta (which enjoys access to international organisations far beyond its geographical size thanks to PN governments) headed by an invertebrate and stupid prime minister and his band of sorts.
[Daphne – Well, they do it with banana republics in sub-Saharan Africa, too.]
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Maybe that he will be resigning??
He is such a fake and a hypocrite – go figure – he almost always puts on a blue tie, almost never wears red, when all he dreams of and aspires is red.
Where did you get the idea that Muscat is a socialist? He is the ultimate self-serving pragmatist.
I used to militate in the Labour (Socialist) Movement, but in time I realised that the P.N. is more ‘Socialist’ than the Labour Party.
I once wrote an article for the Times of Malta in which I said that Eddie Fenech Adami was a stronger Socialist than Alfred Sant.
The big news is not big news at all. It’s probably just this http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140429/local/javier-zanetti-appointed-brand-ambassador-for-the-maltese-islands.516927. Well, with a mentality like Muscat’s ….
Javier Zanetti is from Argentina. Did he buy a Maltese passport?
Definitely not – he’s been living in Italy for nearly 20 years, so he has an EU passport, for sure.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-04-29/news/popes-canonisationpresident-government-work-in-mysterious-ways-4789469184/
And how does Her Excellency intend to tackle migration issues by snubbing the Vatican?
Or is it politically convenient to stand by those whose enmity in that state’s regards is evident?
Muscat will only further expose how forced the decision was if he has to insist ‘government was represented’.
A defiant Duminku Mintoff he ain’t.
No tanker at Marsaxlokk. Gvern li jisma.
Forsi sabu z-zejt?
Daphne: After years complaining about the defict, Joseph jumps to the first occassion to take out investment loans!
While PN government did this for economic investment, Labour seems to be planning this for social housing, in the south of course.
see: http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-04-29/news/eib-president-in-malta-to-explore-opportunities-to-support-maltese-projects-4789469185/
If Joseph Muscat is confident that the PL will get a majority of votes in the European Parliamentary elections why does he claim that his party is the underdog?
I would agree that it’ll be something to do with China and go further and say that Konrad Mizzi’s wife will get credit in order to justify whatever she is doing in China …
With no stretch of imagination can 36,000 votes disappear in one year! Should that be the case he’s got a real problem.
Here we go.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/mobile/view/20140429/local/good-news-to-benefit-families-business-to-be-announced-tomorrow-muscat.516971
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-04-29/news/crisis-for-malta-envisaged-as-800000-migrants-plan-crossing-from-north-africa-4794548224/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook