Despite a concerted drive to boost innovation and research and development, the World Economic Forum (WEF) has placed Malta in last place among the EU25 in the area most crucial to meeting the EU’s Lisbon criteria. Malta also received a rock bottom ranking in the area of sustainable development in the WEF’s Lisbon Review 2006.

Overall, the World Economic Forum has given Malta yet another dismal placing, on the 19th rung of the EU25 and sixth of the EU10, when assessing the progress made by EU countries in achieving its Lisbon Strategy goals of economic and structural reforms.

While Malta scored favourably, in eighth place, in terms of its progress in the information society criterion, the forum has put Malta in last place within the EU in the crucial area of innovation and research and development and sustainable development.

Malta was also among the worst performers in network industries (23rd), enterprise environment (22nd), liberalisation (19th), financial services (15th) and social inclusion (13th).

On the upper end of the scale, Denmark was found to be the most competitive economy as measured by the European Union’s Lisbon criteria, followed by Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany.

Estonia fared best among the “new” EU10, ranking an overall 12th, based on its information society and enterprise environment progress where it scored a respective fifth and sixth place.

The report notes, however, that “Malta, ranked significantly lower overall, benefits from a relatively developed information society with one of the highest internet penetration rates in Europe.”

Speaking to The Malta Independent yesterday, the report’s author and senior economist at the Forum’s Global Competitiveness Network Jennifer Blanke stressed that if the EU25 as a whole is to meet the Lisbon goals, a more concerted focus must be applied to the areas of innovation and research and development, the general enterprise environment and the information society.

Looking closer at the innovation and research and development criterion, Malta scored last in the quality of its government and university research institutions, collaboration between the private sector and the university, while coming in 24th in terms of university enrolment. In terms of company spending on R&D, Malta was 22nd, 18th in patents per capita, 19th in intellectual property rights protection, and 21st in the availability of scientists and engineers.

On sustainable development, Malta was given a 24th placing on the stringency of its environmental regulations, 23rd in the clarity of such regulations, and 25th in terms of companies harvesting or processing natural resources.

In addition to assessing the performance of the 25 existing EU members, it also measures the competitive performance of the countries on the waiting list to join in coming years – among which Turkey and Croatia came out on top of the tables.

Malta ranked lower with prospective EU member states Turkey and Croatia on innovation and research and development, even with Turkey on liberalisation, slightly lower than Croatia on network industries, just above Croatia on enterprise environment, and below Croatia in sustainable development.

Malta, meanwhile, scored higher than both countries in all other criteria, and over and above other EU hopefuls Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia and the Former Yugoslav Republics and Serbia and Montenegro.

Cyprus, which Malta is often compared with in that both are island economies and new EU members, received a lower ranking than Malta, at 21st place.

Others lagging behind Malta are Lithuania, Latvia, Greece, Italy and Poland.