Economy’s environmental performance

Are sectoral contributions to GDP moving in environmentally friendly directions?

Malta’s gross domestic product (GDP) increased by 4.4 per cent in 2011. Following the trend since 2000, the services sector continued to dominate the Maltese economy, representing 80 per cent of total economic activity. This may, at face value, indicate a shift towards a less resource-intensive economy, particularly considering that it contains sub-sectors such as financial and insurance activities and information and communication.

The primary productive sector, which includes agriculture and fisheries, remained stable at 1.8 per cent of GDP in 2011 as compared with 2009 and 2010. On the other hand, the share of the secondary sector, which includes sub-sectors such as quarrying, water supply and manufacturing, declined by 1.7 percentage points reaching 18.3 per cent in 2011. The share of the secondary sector has been declining since 2004.

This is of interest since many of the activities in this sector have significant environmental impacts. Despite the overall decline in the secondary sector, the share of manufacturing in GDP increased by 0.1 percentage points to 13.2 per cent in 2011, indicating the resilience of this sector, as well as the need to continue to address its environmental impacts.

The share of the tertiary services sector increased by 1.7 percentage points in 2011, (80 per cent). Among the activities within the services sector, real estate activities contributed to 6.2 per cent of GDP in 2011, similar to 2010. This indicator should be viewed together with the indicators covering the overall environmental performance of the economy, such as energy intensity of the economy and domestic material consumption.

For more information see The Environment Report Indicators 2010-2011 at http://www.mepa.org.mt/teri2010-2011 .