“Fifteen days after the euro changeover took place, 93 per cent of the Maltese have only euro banknotes in their wallets, 96 per cent have only euro coins in their wallets, and 92 per cent are paying in cash, using only the euro,” said the National Euro Changeover Committee’s CEO Alan Camilleri yesterday.

Addressing journalists at the NECC headquarters in Birkirkara, Mr Camilleri said that “according to our studies, retailers are reporting no problems of lack of cash in their tills, which means the necessary amount of money is accessible. On average, 17,000 daily cash withdrawals from ATMs are taking place. The situation is therefore, normal, after having reached an ultimate high of 42,000 withdrawals on 5 January. Over e247 million have been withdrawn from commercial banks as of last Sunday.”

From the enforcement perspective the Transport Authority (ADT) issued a fine to a taxi driver who overcharged a client on 1 January, and the client, who happened to be a tourist, has been refunded the difference, he said.

There have been about 300 complaints, but not all of them are investigated because many times they are repeated complaints regarding the same case, and most of them, when checked, have been found to be hoaxes.

In all, 78 valid reports of price abuses have been investigated, and half of them were solved in less than a week. In other cases there are price changes the NECC knew about – for example an increase in the price of pasta was due to international market increases in the price of cereals, said Mr Camilleri.

“In 39 cases, prices were reverted to their original price and in 38 cases we issued a first directive, giving retailers one to two weeks to give us an explanation why there was a price increase. Many times prices are perceived to have increased when in fact it is just an impression the consumer has,” he added.

“Regarding the technical rounding on all prices and how this affects the cost of living, it has been found that due to the fact that in some cases prices go up while in others they go down, the net impact is 0.002 per cent, which is pretty minimal,” said Mr Camilleri.

In terms of Malta’s exposure regarding the euro changeover abroad, in all, there was coverage in 10 countries that are key tourism markets, with over 1,414 clippings including 224 TV coverages, which shows that the euro has helped to place Malta on the map.

Three Austrian representatives of the Price Commission responsible for the euro changeover in Austria were also present at the meeting.

One of them, Walter Fuchs, said: “It was a very smooth process in Malta – congratulations!” Prof. Karl Kollman agreed and said: “Malta has built a very safe environment for consumers – the FAIR initiative for tracking of prices and monitoring of the market was very effective, and you had a very good, consumer friendly complaint system. I have also noticed that some retailers smoothened prices down and that’s a good sign.”

Theodore Trauder on the other hand said: “It is not always easy to tell when a price increases, due to the euro or due to the international markets, so at times it is hard to see if it is the retailer’s fault or not that the price has increased and we have had a lot of debate about this in Austria – I wish you luck.”

Meanwhile the NECC is selling the reproduction rights of their advertisements to the European Union, which shall be used as part of their euro information campaign.