SEPTEMBER 2019 businesstravelerusa.com22
DESTINATIONS
FROM TOP: Valletta’s
16th-century buildings
were constructed
by the Knights
Hospitaller; Our Lady
of Liesse churchINGUS KRUKLITIS/ISTOCK; ANIBAL TREJO/SHUTTERSTOCKMaritime Hub, a huge service hub for the oil
and gas industry.
Farther out, the capital gives way to a
sprawl of residential conurbations, including
Sliema, St Julian’s and the Three Cities.
Here you’ll see many more crumbling
old buildings interspersed with modern
apartment blocks, often in a state of arrested
construction, as if developers have run out
of money mid-project. Even as you head
into the hills, the streets are teeming with
traffic, preposterously busy at rush hour.
Always buzzing, this really feels like a
country open for business.
The Maltese government has set up several
organizations designed to help foreign
investors. Vella says a first point of contact
for businesses looking to launch is Malta
Enterprise (maltaenterprise.com), which
offers loans, training grants, investment
allowances and tax incentives.
There are also a number of sector-specific agencies,
such as Finance Malta, Trade Malta, Gaming Malta
and Property Malta. To an outsider, it looks like the
government is bending over backwards to attract
foreign investment.
Too far backwards, according to some. Critics
point the finger at Malta’s passports-for-sale scheme.
The government recently set up what it calls the
Individual Investor Program, allowing anyone to buy
a Maltese passport (and therefore EU citizenship) for
€650,000 ($730,000), or by investing at least €350,000($393,000) in property. The scheme boosted
government coffers but caused a furor when
it turned out to be a back door for money-
launderers.
Even in the face of the uproar – and
despite the assassination in 2017 of Maltese
investigative journalist Daphne Caruana
Galizia – business and foreign investment
in Malta continues to grow apace. In
2018, the government passed laws to
regulate distributed ledger technolog y, the
driver behind shared digital data such as
blockchain and cryptocurrency. It claims to
be the first country in the world to do so.
Already, major cryptocurrency exchanges
such as Binance, OKEx and ZBX have set
up bases on the island.
“Our foot remains on the accelerator as
we blaze new paths through innovation
and technological breakthroughs,” Prime
Minister Joseph Muscat told the Malta
Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry.
“2018 will go down in history as the year in which
Malta established itself globally as the Blockchain
Island.” Having succeeded, Maltese leaders now want to
make similar inroads into the business of AI.
Given the rapid speed with which these industries
are developing, it may be about time the il-quccijaija
birthday tradition was given an update. Maltese babies
may very well need a new selection of objects to
choose from. Although, what exactly might represent
blockchain ledger is anyone’s guess. BT^