Malta retains placing in WEF index

The World Economic Forum has confirmed Malta's place as the 27th "most networked economy in the world".

The WEF's Global Information Technology Report 2007-2008 was published yesterday in Geneva and confirmed Malta's high worldwide ranking announced in last year's report.

Malta continues to lead major competitors such as Italy, Slovenia, Spain and several others.

Commenting on the WEF's announcement, Communications and National Projects Minister Austin Gatt remarked that in an ever-changing competitive environment keeping the country's high global rankings is an achievement in itself but Malta aspires to climb further in the ratings.

"Our Smart Island strategy plots the course to achieve this improved status by 2010 with an upgraded international connectivity and next-generation high-speed broadband infrastructure," Dr Gatt said.

He recalled that since the workings of the WEF report were drawn up, local telecoms provider Go announced the laying of a new submarine information connection with Europe. "This is part of the implementation of our commitment to work with the telecoms providers to expand international connectivity with more connections to mainland European via routes other than the existing ones, to North Africa and potentially to the Middle East," he said.

Dr Gatt also pointed out that his ministry is working on a fibre to the home (FTTU) project to connect Maltese households on a robust and ubiquitous network that updates Malta's networking infrastructure to the highest standards worldwide.