Full speech of Hon. Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi at MARE Summit 2022
The following is the full, unadulterated speech that Hon. Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi, Minister of Public Works and Planning, delivered on the second day of MARE Summit.
As Minister for Public Works and Planning, it is my pleasure to address an audience that encompasses the top key players of the construction, real estate, heritage, health and safety, and other related professions under one roof at the MARE Summit. These disciplines and fields of expertise are central to Malta’s continued economic well-being.
The MARE summit is a hybrid summit; it is a concept borne out of the universal adversity of the Covid19 scenario. The hybrid element of this exciting event is an analogy which teaches us that challenges are disruptors that provide excellent opportunities for one to think out of the box, for ingenuity to take over fear or uncertainty. Therefore, this gathering should serve as a positive step forward to help spark more robust prospects in our field.
Indeed, despite the pandemic, Malta’s housing market has remained resilient and has also seen growth. As was the case in most other Western economies, our country has seen a gradual recovery from the effects of the pandemic. The gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 9.4% in 2021, driven by various positive factors. The GDP level was marginally above that of 2019. The Central Bank of Malta expects Malta’s gross domestic product (GDP) to grow by 6.0% in 2022, 5.3% in 2023 and 3.8% in 2024.
The government fully understands that the Building and Construction Sector, employing over 18,000 people contributes around 10% of the national GDP. In 2020, the share of gross value-added in the construction and real estate activities sub-sectors stood at 4.0% and 5.8%, respectively. Notwithstanding there is a need to transform, especially within the current socio and economic environment.
In the first quarter of this year, contracts worth nearly three quarters of a billion euro were signed. This was the best first quarter data ever to be recorded in our nation’s history. The average value per contract was 11% more than that observed in the same period in 2019, before the pandemic started.
Numbers aside, we cannot afford to rest on our laurels. Growth needs to be sustainable. It is time to regroup and upgrade our approach. The post-Covid era is fraught with new economic realities. All hands must be on deck to secure greater resilience in the face of possible fallout from the war in Ukraine and the risk of rising inflation in the Euro area.
Given that the sector remains attached to traditional practices, the need to take a step-by-step approach is a necessary step forward. There is a growing focus on raising standards, harmonizing regulations, and upgrading working methods and rules in a staggered process.
There are national as well as external factors which are driving the transformation of this sector. While the first hail from our need to improve training and work practices, as well as strengthening our heritage and environmental care, the latter results from EU directives, specifically the Energy Performance Building Directive complemented by other related directives.
Our way forward will help steer the Building and Construction industry towards adopting the necessary change in its processes and practices. A key to the success of this gradual process is the creation of greater awareness and improved education at all levels. There is a need to regenerate vocational subjects and recognize new skills, such as green jobs and technical professionals, and to upscale and generate innovative practices and regulatory aspects to ensure that the sector moves to new standards.
In an increasingly competitive and unstable world, Malta’s success in real estate and foreign direct investment will depend on how much we continue to raise the local standards.
Tomorrow’s success will depend on how much we protect and improve our standards, protect architectural heritage, the environment, and our community’s quality of life today. We cannot afford to get any of these three areas wrong.
Malta’s economic growth cannot come at the expense of our workers’ safety or poor working conditions.
Furthermore, we must continue to work towards a construction sector that works more harmoniously with the community – while showing good neighbourliness. We must work towards a construction industry that has a lesser impact on the environment, not just in terms of improved air quality and better ways of dealing with its waste, but also in terms of less noise pollution.
Affluence and economic growth are not enough. Malta needs to up its game where the quality of our living environment is concerned. We also understand that people need to enjoy nature and the outdoors, as these are essential qualities of a good and healthy standard of living.
In the meantime, we need to get to the point where people no longer feel threatened by a construction project in their neighbourhood. In fact, we have already set in law guarantees and provisions to protect people who live next to construction sites.
Ultimately, we want to reach a stage where every new project will need to have a start and an end date. We also want to make sure that all new buildings are designed to be as energy-efficient as possible.
We need to find ways to ensure that those working in the construction field have the required skills. Our objective is for the construction sector to be better regulated, with improved laws on the licensing of contractors, as well as the introduction of building codes and measures to upgrade the skills of all workers in the industry.
The plan is to introduce a set of National Building Codes that will provide a consolidated regulatory and technical platform to the industry on how things need to be based on a functional approach rather than a prescriptive one.
Reaching the aims of this plan will depend greatly on ensuring professionalism at all levels. As a government, we must continue our dialogue and consultation with all stakeholders in the field followed by implementation of various legislation that will help improve the construction sector. This is a necessary development that will help us steer the next steps forward.
We also need to protect natural and historic environment. We intend to implement the update of the Strategic Plan for Environment and Development (SPED) and introduce new indicators that will ensure that SPED is meeting its objectives to protect the rural and urban environment in our country.
The government is committed to ensuring that urban conservation areas (UCAs) are irrevocably defined, except for widening and including other sites in the scheme. The government plans to introduce a buffer zone around urban conservation areas so that there is a gradual change for the better in the aesthetics of our towns and villages. On the same lines, we look closely at scheduled second-tier buildings with new incentives to encourage owners to restore these buildings and open them to the public where possible.
While taking heed of the public’s call for greater care as far as the look and feel of our buildings is concerned, we will draw up a policy on building aesthetics with clear standards that incentivize respect for the unique features of the old parts of our villages and the Maltese and Gozitan landscape. We need to pay more attention to the aesthetic appearance of our buildings – both those under construction and existing ones.
Having listened to the people’s concerns, we shall be kick-starting a consultation process leading to the introduction of a skyline policy to help strike a balance between the need for high-rise buildings and the preservation of the identity of localities, views and interests of the surrounding residents – particularly in Gozo. This much-needed policy will help bring about more uniformity and proportionality where the height of the building must not be detrimental to the unique features, and ensure that high-rise buildings should have the least possible impact on the lives of the surrounding community.
When approving development permits, the responsible authorities need to give more importance to environmental impact and renewable energy aspects. Priority will be given to those projects whose operations are working towards more energy efficiency as part of our way forward towards decarbonisation of the economy.
Moreover, incentives have been put in place to develop new and refurbished buildings as sustainably as possible. Such incentives and schemes will be awarded according to criteria based on energy efficiency, access to natural light, charging points for electric vehicles, treatment waste, aesthetics and greening of facades, walls and roofs.
The establishment of the Building and Construction Authority in 2021 was an important milestone that marked our government’s commitment to bringing about the necessary change forward.
The BCA is now responsible for ascertaining the safeguarding of third parties and safe working practices by ensuring that core aspects of a building’s life cycle are developed effectively, and follow up-to-date regulations applied in a controlled environment. This authority will help spearhead the creation of a construction eco-system, embracing good governance, policies and tailormade practices that support networking platforms promoting compliant and sustainable buildings.
The BCA’s efforts do not stop there. It promotes the drive to make our buildings more comfortable, relying on performance from passive technologies combined with SMART technologies and alternative green energy. Mindful of the challenges affecting the construction sector, mainly where human resource management is concerned, we shall be introducing new laws aimed at improving the regulations in the field, including those on the licensing of contractors and improving the skills of all workers in the sector – along with the minimum skill requirements by construction workers.
Once adopted, these laws will boost the quality of the construction industry and its efficiency, professionality, and overall safety standards.
These regulations should see the much-desired process that should lead towards the upscaling of our construction sector’s workforce to achieve better quality in terms of the ‘making of a building’. Contractors with improved standards plus a qualitatively trained workforce plus Building Codes make the sector move towards a qualitative jump.
We must ensure that any development is carried out with the least possible inconvenience to residents and the surrounding environment. As I mentioned earlier, each project should have established timelines and coordination in implementation to reduce inconvenience and increase enforcement in construction.
The Long-Term Renovation Strategy being put forward is a game-changer and is ambitious in its scope. It aims to promote investment over 30 years, as well as more green jobs and the development of new skills, and improving the quality of our homes, our commercial buildings, and the building stock owned by the public sector.
The government is committed to leading by example, and this strategy manifests this commitment, as it also focuses on achieving more energy-efficient systems in public buildings. However, while leading by example, the government expects the private sector to follow suit.
The government’s policy mix focuses on different levers to ensure public spending and leverage for private investment – information, regulation, enforcement, incentives and working with stakeholders to overcome financial and technical barriers.
This is the strategic framework that the Maltese government will adopt for the renovation of the building stock over 30 years leading up to 2050. It is purposely designed to address the pathways for Malta to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 for the buildings sector. The Maltese government remains committed to a transition to a greener and carbon-neutral economy and will invest substantially in this process to ensure that no one is left behind.
Malta deserves buildings that preserve its beautiful natural assets and reduce the overall impact on the environment before, during and after construction.
After extensive consultation and public discussions, the government has taken measures to help make Malta greener; this will be achieved by investing €700 million to create “green lungs” for urban spaces during the next seven years. These areas will ensure residents would not need to drive their car out of their town or village to spend time in an open public space with trees and greenery.
This “green lungs” plan will create a network of gardens and open spaces, including parks, urban green reclamation projects, greening initiatives, underground parking, and green areas spread out over car car-free tunnels in different localities.
Throughout Malta’s history, the Maltese people have traditionally demonstrated resilience and courage in the face of the most adverse conditions. Despite the islands’ geographic limitations – with practically little or no natural resources – our ancestors turned challenges into new opportunities, precisely what we are doing today.
Armed with historical heritage, vision and determination to bring about positive change, we are envisaging a quantum leap forward in the field of construction and planning, a step towards a better quality of life for all. Our commitments will not only help Malta strengthen its economic and environmental well-being but do much, much more.
There is a lot of work to be done, but I am determined to work with all stake holders to see it through. I encourage you to support us in our work towards a better Malta – together!
Thank you.
