We really need to promote economic activity that does leave strong added value in the Maltese economy. As of the end of the 1980’s and during the 1990’s, the Fenech Adami administrations prodded the Maltese economy in a big way towards a direction that would make it specialise in the provision of services.

Before that, the emphasis had been on giving full encouragement to industry. To understand this, one simply needs to read the development plans published in previous years.

Today, it seems like the aims of the Nationalist administrations post-1987 have been reached. The Maltese economy  is largely based on services. This has general acceptance, including within the present administration.

Still I think we need to reflect more deeply about what would be of greater benefit to the country, not in a “short” term perspective, as much as longer term. Apart from tourism, do services leave a value added that is sufficiently high and secure, one that is non-speculative?  

Effectively, with its services sector, Malta’s role is that of a middleman. There’s nothing wrong with that. Yet middlemen can affect minimally the value of what they carry forward, and are always at the beck and call of whoever wishes to come along (or not) to trade via them.

***

Meeting in Gozo

During a meeting about Gozo organised in Gozo by my office there, in the still incredibly beautiful hotel at Ta’ Ċenċ, we had an interesting discussion about how that island could benefit from EU funds for development projects.

Let’s put a bracket around the disastrous way by which the PN government negotiated the approach to be followed regarding Gozo, when Malta joined the EU...

Even so, over the years, efforts were made to get Gozo to benefit as much as Malta from European funds. If they were hardly successful... or if they succeeded much less than was desired ... we need to reflect on why this happened.

During our meeting, we had the opportunity to consider this point. The comments that were made both publicly and later to me privately, were most instructive.

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“Canaglia”

From the 1940s and the 1950s, when movies were made in black and white, a good number of films from Italy (and I assume other European countries) have been forgotten, even if they really deserve being shown and seen again.

Like “Peccato che sia una canaglia” (“What a pity you’re a thug” – though I doubt wheter the English title was like so on release): the film was issued in 1955, directed by Alessandro Blasetti, based on an Alberto Moravia short story, with Vittorio de Sica, Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni (the last two looking unbelievably junior).

It’s a dynamic farce (I saw it on you tube). Mastroaianni is a young taxi driver who attempts to capture and bring to justice two hooligans who tried to steal his car. Loren, who is their accomplice, gets close to the taxi driver without in any way giving up on her “profession”. The same could be said for all her family, with de Sica as the father who propounds a whole philosophy in justification of thieving.

Scenes which focus on traffic congestion in Rome are quaint. Compared to today’s jams, they look puny. Still, the film creates situations of utter confusion when Mastroianni abandons his taxi in mid-square to rush after those who had tried to rob him of his good car.