Vince Farrugia, GRTU Director General, held a meeting this week for representatives of the Ministry of Resources and Rural Affairs, Police Officers responsible for Valletta, representatives from ADT and the office of the Prime Minister as well as representatives from the Valletta Local Council, so that together with GRTU they would draft a plan to ensure that the situation in the centre of Valletta will not deteriorate any further. Unfortunately, the situation is deteriorating at quite a fast rate, despite the Government's Investments in relation to the pedestrianisation as well as the restoration of a number of historical sites.

Accessibility remains the crucial problem for those wanting to make use of the vast facilities offered in Valletta. The wide range of shops, shopping arcades, coffee shops, restaurants and others offering a variety of services not only have made a significant investment but also employ a large number of workers. These establishments can no longer suffer the damage caused by the fact that people in general are discouraged from frequenting Valletta's commercial center. The owners' expenses to keep such establishments are large and they are facing strong competition from other commercial centres spread over the Island. Unless the accessibility problem is solved, people will keep on avoiding going to Valletta when they can get the same services from other places.

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The new regulation provides for a further reduction in call charges and an extension of pricing limits to cover SMS and data services. The new rules will ensure that the price paid by users of mobile communication networks for community-wide roaming services is not unjustifiably higher than the price paid for making or receiving a call, sending and receiving an SMS message and transferring data in their country of origin.

The regulation lays down new measures to improve the transparency of retail prices for data roaming services, and to provide roaming customers with the tools they need to monitor and control their expenditure on these services.