Most interesting was the information provided by Minister Manwel Mallia that the contribution made by internet gaming to the island’s economy has now reached 12 per cent of our Gross Domestic Product.

One can only be pleased that the sector is generating so much activity, with a positive impact overall on economic growth. At present, the latter is at record levels never before reached for as long as I can remember.

However, we must not to let outcomes blind us to realities. Internet gaming gives rise to problems. It triggers cross-border jealousies and reservations.

As in the case of financial services, there will be countries interested in damming the channels through which opportunites flow. On some issues they may have good reason to do so. But they will quite likely deploy all the power they have to strike back right across the board. 

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Economic Survey

The data about how big the internet gaming sector has become confirms that the structure of our economy has changed greatly over the past twenty years. If to gaming, financial services are added, the conclusion is that taken together, the two sectors account between them for more than one third of the Maltese economy.

Now, at budget time, the Finance Minister issues an economic account describing the year to year developments in the Maltese economy. Strangely, this document still sticks to the template laid out for it during the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties. Thus, it discusses at length industry, agriculture and tourism. But it has practically nothing to say about financial and other services. Instead, information about these areas is “hidden” in statistics related to other economic activities.

I have raised this matter for quite a while but now the problem has become blatant. The prevailing method for the description of the Maltese economy in a document which defines the governmet’s economic narrative no longer makes sense.

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Political reporting

Frequently we listen to comments about how partisan news reports in the Maltese media turn out to be. They draw too much on the party line or on the political alignment that the newspaper has adopted. Even the facts as presented end up conditioned by the publication’s political commitment.

I’ve noticed that the same could be argued for a country like France, where a presidential election campaign is now in full swing; and this among media houses which are considered the best in their field – Le Monde and Le Figaro.  The first is generally supportive of the left, the other of the right.

As it happens, both left and right are doing badly.

So, Le Monde’s front page features stories about how the right captained by Francois Fillon is meeting with indifference and suspicion from voters and political heavyweights. Meanwhile, in Le Figaro,mainline stories on the front page concentrate on the disarray that is characterizing the campaign of the socialist candidate Benoit Hamon and how socialist leaders have been abandoning his cause.