On the face of it, it should not be too difficult for anyone on this island of 400,000 souls to find out what is going on and how. If one cannot suss out the truth in an island this small, what chance does one have in a country of, say, 50 million?

There may be a contrary argument to this. The very smallness, nay compactness, of the island, makes it incredibly difficult to establish anything within a relatively safe margin.

In fact, it is very difficult to arrive at any common assessment of the truth of the matter.

Take the economy, for instance.

Only a week or so ago, the Federation of Industries published its semi-annual Industry Survey results. The findings, in short, were gloom and doom everywhere. “Malta’s industrial confidence declined in July compared to the gains registered in the previous two months.” “A significant deterioration in order books recorded throughout the whole spectrum of the manufacturing sector and a negative assessment of stocks of finished products”. “An improvement in production expectations”.

Compare this to the findings of the Central Bank’s latest Business Perceptions Survey (TMIS, 14 August), which showed, the analysis said, that business confidence in Malta is recovering after three successive negative quarters. The survey was carried out in April and May and showed renewed optimism both in export-oriented and domestically-oriented firms. Overall, most respondents expected an upturn in their activity in the short term but while most locally-oriented manufacturing firms were expecting their profitability to decline, exporters were generally anticipating a recovery in profitability.

Then we have last week’s National Accounts report by the National Statistics Office, which showed GDP increasing by 2.4 per cent in real terms in the second quarter of the year, with an increase in output across all industries with a higher gross added value in almost all industries except in the State-owned electricity, gas and water supply industries where higher fuel prices wiped out increases in output.

Who to believe?

Do the people in industry keep two sets of books, two sets of assessments, which they trot out according to whether the questioner is from the government (in which case the Most Optimistic scenario is brought out) or from FOI (in which case the Most Pessimistic scenario is brought out, presumably with much gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands?)

It is also true that one can perhaps find some internal reasons to explain away some of the contradictions between the findings. The FOI survey, for instance, was carried out much later than the Central Bank’s and business confidence may have been dealt a huge blow by the hefty rise in fuel price. And a 2.4 per cent increase in real GDP (which will have to be confirmed in the next issue of the Quarterly Review) does not eliminate the negative figures of the previous two quarters.

The point is, however, that the public at large, confused by such confusing findings and figures, browbeaten by a media plugging what its paymasters tell it, is thoroughly bewildered and at the mercy of that media and that political party which shouts loudest and which is more negative. For people, generally, are more prone to believe things will get worse than be persuaded things are not that bad after all.

In a way, this is, despite everything else, a good corrective exercise, especially after the orgy of euphoria at the time when Malta joined the EU, when people expected the roads to be paved with gold and a life of ease awaited us all. It is surely much better to understand that our feet must be planted firmly on the ground, that nobody owes us anything, that nobody will do anything for us and that if we want anything we must go and get it ourselves, the hard way. It is also good to do what we should all have done in the recent past: restructuring the country’s economy, shaving off the loss-makers and decreasing the government stranglehold over the country.

The people must also realise that despite the grim predictions, the higher prices for almost everything, and the spike in oil prices, the bottom has not fallen out of the economy. There is a resilience in our economy that surprises even the most callous of observers and turns to dust all the dire predictions that are made. Remember January 2004 when factory after factory, facing the shakeout that EU membership and the removal of protective barriers, closed down? Remember the dire predictions when the EU referendum was drawing near (and in the far distant past when Malta’s independence drew near)?

It is true that we have just barely started to scratch the surface, that the restructuring process begun at the Dockyards, for instance, but not at Enemalta where it is even more important; and that pockets of resistance spring into action all the time – the buses, the unions expecting the government to take on any worker hived off in a restructuring exercise into the wider government sector – and that huge problems lie ahead as the waves of the globalised seas get higher and our boat seems to look smaller.

But it is equally true that we have companies which are competing and are becoming world beaters, as this newspaper points out on page 7. And that companies are relocating to Malta from other EU countries because they find that working in Malta is far more advantageous than, for instance, relocating all the way to India.

It is also true bright and clever people are leaving in droves, attracted by wider horizons, and that some or many entrepreneurs are finding it more valuable to invest in third countries than in Malta for a variety of reasons, many of which are valid. It is equally true that much more remains to be done, much much more.

Now how does one include all this in a survey result, assuming that the result is a fair and just assessment of the operators’ perception of a reality that is bigger than us all? Surveys, after all, are just that: a survey of perceptions. One would be very wrong to base one’s decisions on the surveys of what people like oneself feel and believe the situation to be, just as one would be foolish to base decisions one takes about one’s health on a survey of perceptions of other people on health in general.