The Gaming sector contributes €1.2 billion to Malta's economy, which is 12% of the GDP (gross domestic product), Minister for Competitiveness and Digital, Marime and Services Economy Emmanuel Mallia said this during the conference Connecting Our Future.

The conference was organised by the Office of the Permanent Secretary within the Ministry for Competitiveness and Digital, Maritime and Services Economy. Permanent Secretary Anthony Gatt expounded upon how the annual budget measures are each year compared and contrasted to that which would have been carried out, or not, within each Ministry. This, in effect, means that each year each Ministry determines how many of the objectives planned by Government would have been implemented.

On his part, Minister Mallia reiterated that he was well-aware that what is to be achieved is not easy to do, because of the inordinate number of measures, quality benchmarks, and dimensions of the Budget for 2017 which contains a number of sub-clauses which will make remaining on target very challenging.

"Despite all this," insisted Minister Mallia, "we shall not be in any way discouraged from doing our utmost to accomplish the proposed projects. Rather, this shall serve as an impetus that leads us to overcome this unprecedented challenge. I am pleased to report that so far, we have already achieved all that we intended to accomplish. It would therefore be feasible to enumerate, with satisfaction, some of the projects already being finalised.