Malta : moving away from confrontation

Abstract

Malta is a small country with a land area of just 316 km2, located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, between Italy and Libya, comprising three inhabited islands with a total resident population of about 440,000. The country achieved independence from the United Kingdom in 1964 after serving essentially as a fortress economy throughout most of its history (Pirotta 2001). Coupled with its small size, this means that manufacturing was essentially non-existent and the Colonial Government was by far the major employer (Zammit 1984). The country has a British-style ‘Westminster- Whitehall’ political system with just two major political parties in Parliament between 1966 and 2007: the Labour Party, which has been in government since 2013, and the Nationalist Party, currently in opposition. Over the past 30 years, the country’s economy has undergone a dramatic transformation, with a decline in the wave of export-led manufacturing fuelled by foreign investment and technology that characterized the period between the fi rst national development plan (1959–1964) and the mid-1980s, and in which the labour-intensive and female worker–dominated sub-industries of textiles and clothing featured prominently. These have now been replaced by a diversifi ed service sector, including tourism, transshipment, fi nancial services, aircraft maintenance and electronic gaming.