Even though this is a very small country and its economic and financial figures would more suit a town on the continent, there is still ample margin for misunderstanding the figures as presented.
One such case regards Foreign Direct Investment or FDI.
On paper, the most recent years show a most welcome upsurge in FDI after some years when this languished and seemed to have dried up.
When these figures are read on an international level, it is easy to conclude that with FDI being on the increase, Malta's economy is on the mend, or even better is taking the correct strategic decisions to ensure future growth.
But a closer look at the figures would temper such optimism because the bulk of this upsurge in FDI is government to government FDI rather than an FDI leading to growth in the private sector. While government-to-government FDI is most welcome, it would have been even more so had it been private sector FDI.
In the case of Malta, to be specific, the economy works on two levels: the vast government machine which is broader than that found in many other countries, and the private sector.
Over the past years, for all declarations to the contrary, the public sector has remained vast and deeply anchored. When, some years back, the country was promised this would be rolled back, the contrary actually happened. Through the exigencies of modern governance, a second tier of government was introduced - that of authorities or agencies which ideally were intended to act as regulators and supervisors over the public service.
What actually happened was just to introduce a second tier, with a different set of human resources, with better salary packages. But the promised efficiency never materialized. For the past years we were living a dream. So instead of the public sector being decreased, it remained as vast as it had always been, if not even growing more and more.
Add to that the inevitable taking on of people at every election by each and every government and the very sporadic and half-hearted efforts made to reduce the public sector and you get the public sector remaining at the high percentage in the country as we have today.
The FDI that has flowed or is flowing to Malta and which has been attracted to the public sector is of course very welcome. But it would have been even more welcome had it been FDI for the private sector.
On the contrary, any growth in investment in the private sector is mainly home-grown and this limits the range and depth of future growth. Maybe this is the reason why construction powers on while other sectors languish for lack or dearth of investment.
A notable exception to this lies in the manufacturing sector where we do have local facilities of foreign principals and where consequently FDI flows are most welcome and have immediate impacts.
But otherwise home-grown enterprises flounder for lack of investment, and thus their range, despite the ability of the Maltese at their head, remains necessarily limited. One does not have immediate access to comparative studies in this regard but maybe other economies offer their people better access and better facilities.
Although there have been many improvements in the sector, Maltese enterprises used to find it quite difficult to penetrate in export markets and thus in sourcing FDI.
So too, there has been rather a neglect of sourcing funds from other than the (local) banks. Very few enterprises can be said to have found foreign sources of investment let alone breaking into such areas as cloud funding.
Fortunately and with huge difficulties all around we are seeing R&D flourish especially at university and tertiary levels and these are now succeeding in finding funds from alternative sources.
Although such green shoots are still sporadic, one hopes such a trickle becomes a stream, later a stream and hopefully a river.