The Central Bank of Malta has just published its annual report in which it describes Malta’s economy as resilient and better than the eurozone.
The Malta Central Bank report showed that the Maltese economy continued to outperform the euro area with the gross domestic product (GDP) standing at 3.5%, up from the previous year’s mark of 2.7%.
The report highlighted the fact that during the first nine months of 2014, employment in Malta was on average 2.2 % higher than a year earlier, according to a Labor Force Survey.
Inflation was down below 1%, standing at 0.8%, largely thanks to lower energy tarrifs.
Meanwhile, as the eurozone has continued to disappoint, more and more commentators have come to see it as resembling, or in danger of coming to resemble, Japan, NewsNow reported.
If you look at the eurozone’s bond markets, you could readily conclude that the eurozone economy is nothing to worry about. The trouble is that the markets were in a similar state of insouciance immediately before the existential crisis of 2012 blew up.
The truth is that although financial markets are wonderful at assessing and valuing events or circumstances that are fairly concrete and immediate, with regard to the uncertain and possibly distant, they are very bad.
Their typical reaction to profound uncertainty is implicitly to make some blithe assumption and then to ignore the issue. In a contest for the market’s attention between the uncertain and possibly distant prospect of euro break-up and the US non-farm payroll figures, due out at 1.30pm, the payroll figures win hands down.
