Domestic material consumption

What is the trend in domestic material consumption in Malta?

Domestic Material Consumption (DMC) is used as an indicator to estimate the total amount of material directly used in an economy.

It provides an assessment of the absolute level of the use of resources, and is calculated on the basis of the sum of total national extraction of minerals (estimated), biomass, and imports less exports. Overall DMC increased 6.2% between 2010 and 2011, resulting from increased imports and exports, although overall the trend indicates a decline.

On the other hand domestic extraction fell by 8.8% during this period due to lower levels of mineral extraction. Between 2010 and 2011 the mass of imports used in Malta’s economy increased by 27.6%, mainly due to a 44.2% increase in fossil fuel imports in 2011.

During this period material productivity, declined by 3.9%, indicating less material efficiency.

Material productivity is calculated by dividing GDP in real terms by DMC, and provides an indication of how efficient the economy is in terms of use of the material resources.

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