EY’s Attractiveness Survey 2018 Review

EY Malta have recently published their annual Malta Attractiveness Survey. During this annual event, key findings on whether Malta is attractive for investors and foreign direct investment, based on different aspects of the country, are presented. The main concern that investors have about Malta is the lack of specialised skills of the labour force, and feel that this is holding investment back. In addition, 70% of the respondents believe that Malta should focus on developing the right skills in order to attract more investment towards the island.

It is important to note that when comparing with last year’s results, the percentage of foreign direct investors that think Malta is attractive for investment, decreased from 78% last year to 74% this year, meaning a 15% drop in two years. In addition, the ranking of the stability and transparency of Malta’s political-legal and regulatory environment dropped to 44%, a considerable drop of 37% over the past two years. The factors that are most attractive to investors are corporate taxation (88%), the stability of the social climate (75%) and the potential productivity increase of one’s firm (67%). Malta’s access to the EU, a pro-business culture, a skilled English speaking workforce, and lower operating costs were also flagged as key benefits.

Topics discussed during the breakout sessions include; the Financial Services, Environment and Tourism, Innovation and AI, iGaming, Transport and Logistics, Human Capital and Brexit. The breakout sessions took the form of Q&A sessions which gave the delegates the platform to share their insights and perspectives on the industry’s game changers, both local and foreign.We believe that although Malta is still relatively well positioned to attract new foreign investment, this can all change in a blink of an eye and therefore we should be pro-active and innovative across all major sectors of the economy. Finally, we would like to thank EY Malta for giving us the opportunity to attend this conference.