Communications Minister Censu Galea announced this during an informal ministerial conference in Dublin. Mr Galea said: “The final national broadband strategy for Malta will be forwarded to the EU Commission by the end of next month, ensuring Malta’s commitment to improve its IT sector.” The Dublin meeting is the latest in a series of regular meetings for EU ministers responsible for communications.

Broadband is the latest in high speed internet access technology, delivering access at speeds hundreds of times faster than a dial-up modem can provide.

As highlighted in the recent commission report which focused on the situation in the EU’s electronic communications sector, the effective use of information and communication technology is the key to improved competitiveness and productivity growth in Europe, said Mr Galea. “Therefore the electronic communications sector has a strategic role to play in delivering a high speed infrastructure (broadband),” he said. However, this must be complemented by innovative services that will allow the economy, and society as a whole, to realise and use to their best advantage the benefits of an information society, said Mr Galea.

The main theme of the conference was Broadband-content and demand stimulation and the discussion was aimed at exploring the best way of formulating a policy centred on the development of content and services to stimulate the promotion and use of broadband.

Addressing to the conference, Mr Galea said that in developing its broadband strategy, the Maltese government adhered to the key principles it was adopting in respect of those aspects related to the development of an information society.

The final draft of this national broadband strategy for Malta, which was drawn up jointly by the Malta Communications Authority and the Information Technology and Industry Ministry, was presented to the National Information Society Advisory Council this week.

And following a period of public consultation, the final version will be forwarded to the commission by the end of May in advance of the commission’s own communication on the same subject which is expected to be presented at the June Telecommunications Council.

Mr Galea went on to highlight the key principles adopted in this broadband strategy and said that the diffusion of broadband deployment, and its usage by the largest possible percentage of the population, is a major milestone in a country’s progress towards an information society and economy.

In the last quarter of 2003, 30 per cent of internet subscriptions were broadband. This effectively means that 5.4 per cent of the whole population use broadband, which compares well with the EU average of 6.03 per cent in January 2004.

“The transition from narrowband internet access to broadband technology presents a set of perennial challenges which have to be addressed,” said Mr Galea. He said this had to be done by a number of stakeholders including central and local government, the national regulatory authority, private industry and civil society. “It is therefore our responsibility to ensure a fair and competitive market which reaches a balance between the interests of consumers and those of the investor,” he concluded.