From Dr M. A. Sammut

We need direct foreign investment as much as we need water and security for two reasons. First, because our country lacks natural resources. Secondly, because having been a colony for so long we lack the culture of research and development, and therefore have very little home-grown know-how. We need to import it, constantly, if we want to keep abreast with developments in science and technology. Imports are always at a cost.

The question arises spontaneously. Are we getting enough foreign direct investment? Are State entities entrusted with attracting foreign investment flexible enough to respond to the needs – real or perceived – of foreigners ready to risk their money on an island? We have to admit our limitations: we’re cut off from mainland Europe and we lack a viable home market. The foreign SME, which considers Malta to put up its manufacturing base here, has to find flexibility and a fast reaction time. Are the experts, who are profusely paid because they are entrusted with this vital public function, delivering? How much direct foreign investment in the form of SMEs is pouring into Malta? Is Malta pursuing a policy of diversification, or are we putting all our eggs in one basket, as it were, depending on one multinational and one mega project (still in the pipeline) to make up the greater part of our exports?

There are those who argue that the days of manufacturing are over, that our future lies in the services industry. This could be true. Up to a point, however. A good part of our workforce lacks the skills to be employed in the services industry. No policy-maker in his right senses can ignore the manufacturing sector. It is therefore legitimate to ask what is being achieved by those entrusted to attract foreign investment, apart from enjoying their jolly fat salaries, of course.

What is being done to inculcate a culture conducive to research and development? Do we intend being relegated to the very last places in the European league when it comes to creating know-how? Are we condemning ourselves to a future in which we are always dependent on new ideas created abroad, and on the crumbs that fall from the tables of other nations who treasure innovation, experimentation, and development?

There is an alternative, of course. If we cannot do otherwise, and have to resign ourselves to such a bleak future, then are we doing anything to help locals start up their export-oriented businesses? If, despite our monthly big, fat cheque, we can’t manage to attract foreigners, shouldn’t we at least launch local projects? Are those entrusted with the leadership of our industrial policy doing their utmost to help all Maltese citizens willing to take the plunge and risk their money and energies to try and create wealth and jobs?

With the Foreign Minister’s bid to attract direct foreign investment via the post of Commonwealth Secretary General consigned to the repository of history, it is now more imperative than ever that State institutions help those Maltese who wish to try their luck in the international business arena. If their projects make sense, they should be helped. The Maltese State has to be aggressive like other emancipated States. Its servants – be they political appointees with a fat salary or otherwise – should unfetter themselves from the bureaucratic manacles of the neo-colonial mentality, and encourage citizens to look beyond our shores. There lies the future. We can’t keep practising economic cannibalism.

Like many other citizens, I do not wish to hear more grandiloquent speeches putting all the emphasis on huge projects that reduce the Maltese to a nation of perennial employees at the service of foreigners. I think the time has come for the State to aid – not on paper, but in reality – those Maltese who wish to follow their entrepreneurial spirit and to contribute to the creation of national wealth.

A couple of friends of mine wish to start their own project. They have spent much of their hard-earned cash to establish contacts abroad, and have the guts to throw the dice. They thought they would find encouragement from the State because their project is viable, they are hard working and they found an interesting niche market. They wish to employ a few people, and start their own SME. It’s more of an S than an M, true, but it’s still an E. The brick wall they found in their way they would never have dreamt of. One of them is thinking of not voting for the governing party, although he’s been voting for them for a lifetime. And with him, his entire family. And he’s telling his friends too. The other one didn’t want to tell me what he’s up to. Having little to do, he’ll probably come up with ideas on what to write about in newspapers.

Mark A. Sammut