Competitive Malta to be launched at next EMCS conference

Competitive Malta, a foundation for national competitiveness, will be launched at the end of the next conference being organised by EMCS (Economic and Management Consultancy Services), on November 18 at the Corinthia San Gorg Hotel.

Entitled "Is Malta Competitive?: Building a viable strategy for business and the country", the conference is intended to serve as a suitable backdrop for the launching of the foundation, a long-held ambition of EMCS's chairman and managing director, Dr John C. Grech.

Indeed, the very first conference organised by EMCS, held in February 1998, was entitled "The Competitiveness of the Maltese Economy".

The conference and the launching of the foundation come at the right time - and not only because it will be on the eve of the Budget. They come after the publication of the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness report on October 30, in which Malta features for the first time.

Dr Grech told me that they had long been trying to get competitiveness on the national agenda, and finally managed, with the support of the Malta Council for Science and Technology (MCST) to include Malta in the World Economic Forum's prestigious report. EMCS mobilised its team of experts and last April managed, with the support and co-operation of local industries, to draw up the Malta report. The initiative was also supported by the constituted bodies.

"But we did not stop there," he went on. "We decided to set up a Foundation for Competitiveness, with the support of the corporate sector, and launch it in the afternoon of the conference, where its composition, objectives and terms of reference will be fully explained. The opportunity will also be taken to explain better what Malta's participation in the World Economic Forum's competitiveness index entails."

One of the tasks of the new foundation is precisely to handle, from now on, the co-ordination and management of future opinion surveys as the World Economic Forum's partner institute.

It is worth briefly going through the findings of the Global Competitiveness Report insofar as Malta is concerned. The report uses two complementary indexes to assess a country's competitiveness: the Growth Competitiveness Index (GCI), which aims to analyse the potential of a country to attain sustained economic growth over the medium and long term, and the Business Competitiveness Index (BCI), which aims to identify the factors that underpin high current productivity and, hence, current eocnomic performance measured by the level of GDP per person.

In the GCI, Malta ranks an impressive 19th out of 102 countries, just after Korea, Austria, Canada and the UK, but ahead of Luxembourg, Spain, Portugal, France and Belgium. Indeed, measured by this index, Malta ranks first among the ten countries which are joining the European Union on May 1 next year.

Contributing to Malta's favourable rating was its first place in FDI technology transfer, sixth in government prioritisation of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and interest rate spread in 2002; and seventh in Government's success in ICT promotion.

On the other hand, the main competitive disadvantages were the government deficit (in which Malta ranked 67th), national savings rate and University/industry research collaboration (both 62nd), company spending on research and development (55th) and tertiary enrolment (58th).

In the BCI Malta ranks much further down - in 42nd place. While the island placed 12th in local equity market access, 16th in the quality of the educational system, 27th in production process sophistication, 30th in the nature of competitive advantage and 31st in value change presence, it obtained very low placings as regards the stringency of environmental regulations (85th), the prevalence of mergers and acquisitions (83rd) and local availability of components and parts (81st).

In the BCI, Malta ranked seventh among the ten EU acceding countries.

Incidentally, Finland, which joined the European Union in 1995, topped both the GCI and BCI.

The EMCS conference of November 18 will address the fundamental issues behind the findings of the World Economic Forum's report. Dr Grech himself and Adrian Said, a director of EMCS, will speak respectively on "Building a strategy for national competitiveness" and "Building cross-sectoral synergies for national competitiveness".

The first guest speaker, Emma Loades, who is manager of the Global Competitiveness Programme, will explain not only how the index is compiled and how it works, and Malta's performance in it, but also what it takes to make a country competitive.

Dr Grech said that benchmarking exercises of this type are important to understand one's position in international dimension. "We have to identify where we can do better," he stressed. To follow up the report's findings, EMCS has chosen four corporate leaders.

The first is Joe Grioli, managing director of Vodafone Malta Ltd, who will look at the telecommunications sector in Malta. He will be followed by Andy Gatesy, chairman and CEO of Toly Products Ltd, which operates from Malta and is a world leader in cosmetic, fragrance and skin-care packaging. He will discuss, as an insider, "Manufacturing in Malta - developing a viable strategy for the manufacturing sector".

Another speaker is the CEO of HSBC Bank Malta, Chris Hothersall, who has worked for the bank in India and Hong Kong. He will look at the competitiveness of Malta's financial sector.

Finally, Alfred Pisani, chairman of Malta's highly successful international hotel chain, the Corinthia Group, will discuss the island's tourism industry performance in relation to other countries.

After an interactive discussion with the panel of speakers, and concluding remarks by Dr Grech, followed by dinner, Competitive Malta will be launched with a presentation to the press.

The conference, possibly one of the most important organised by EMCS, should be of particular interest to corporate leaders, entrepreneurs, business executives and economic, management and financial advisers, but it also has a much wider appeal.

Those who wish to attend should contact EMCS at Airways House, 4th Floor, High Street, Sliema, SLM 15 (tel. 2134-1848/9; fax: 2131-8677; e-mail: mariella. cini@emcs.com.mt or visit the Website: www.emcs. com.mt.