I fail to understand the authorities’ lack of commitment to protect the Comino environment. Supposedly, it should be obvious that tourism needs to be managed with a sense of balance and a longterm vision. I thought this attitude had been imported here and had become well grounded in the ongoing initiatives for this sector, given the success that was obtained when upgrading the quality of the sea around Malta’s principal bays.

It would contradict all that has been declared by way of our aiming to promote high quality tourism if a small island like Comino is abandoned to indiscriminate commercialisation. A person with no ties to journalism or politics, even less to environmental activism, has indeed confirmed to me that this is happening.

Clearly, there is a limit to what Comino can take by way of tourist visits – a limit that can surely be determined, unless it has already been estimated. So, measures should be taken to ensure that visits remain within this limit and that the price charged for them is made to reflect the limit beng applied. It definitely is not a solution to let the market decide how things go.                    

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FOREIGN INVESTMENT

All Maltese governments have had to face the problem of how dificult it is to attract to our shores foreign “fixed” direct investment, that does not use the country as a temporary staging post. True, all govenrments have also chosen to boast about their success in attracting foreign investment, which helped to foster the illusion among many Maltese people that foreign companies strongly share a keen interest in their country.

The reality has been that as these islands have a really tiny market with no natural resources of their own (except for sun and sea) the incentive to commit “fixed” investment was always weak. Often we had to make do with flawed investment proposals that remained dicey. The opening towards financial services then made way for the arrival of funds which we called investment, but which were in fact short term deposits. To attract them here, we offered them exemption from our taxation as well as from the taxation of others.

Still there were noteworthy successes along the line: Malta Rubber – Toly Products – Playmobil – ST Microelectronics – Lufthansa Teknik.

... The litany of fiascos is longer.

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MALTESE IN AUSTRALIA

It is sad news that the number of Australians of Maltese origin who still speak Maltese at home has continued to decline. It is a natural development, one which was to be expected. As the old people who emigrated from Malta die, their children who were born in Australia would have had a restricted interaction with the Maltese language, especially when as children they would have mixed mostly with Australian friends.

When I last visited the country years ago, the prevalent social problem was how to care for the elderly some of whom who as they progressed into old age, were losing the ability to speak any language but the Maltese of their childhood. They would end up totally isolated.

What could be done to keep alive the use of the Maltese language in “the happy country”, as Australia used to be called? Can it be true that this is a battle sure to be lost before it is even started? Or that it is not at all worthwhile?