[attach id=242146 size="medium"]Malta’s low ranking of 103 in the ‘quality of roads’ section was the result of answers provided by the island’s top business executives in the World Economic Forum executive opinion survey. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier[/attach]
Malta’s roads have been ranked worse than those in Malawi, Zimbabwe and Pakistan in the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Travel and Tourism Competitiveness report.
Millions of euros in EU funds have been spent on upgrading the island’s road network in recent years, but this does not appear to have changed perceptions among Maltese drivers.
Malta’s low ranking of 103 in the ‘quality of roads’ section was the result of answers provided by the island’s top business executives in the WEF executive opinion survey, which was used in data collation for the competitiveness report.
The executives were asked: “How would you assess the roads in your country?” on a scale of one to seven, with one being “extremely underdeveloped” and seven being “extensive and efficient by international standards”.
The average rating in Malta was 3.1 from surveys returned in 2011 and 2012.
Malawian executives, on the other hand, gave their roads an average rating of 3.4, while in Zimbabwe it was 3.2 and in Pakistan it was 3.9.
A total of 140 countries were assessed in this month’s Travel and Tourism Competitiveness report, which aims to measure the factors and policies that develop each nation’s travel and tourism sectors.
Aside from the executive opinion survey, data was collated from quantitative statistics from publicly available sources, international organisations and travel and tourism institutions and experts.
Malta ranked 24th overall in the report by the WEF, an influential, independent grouping of business, political and academic leaders.
This was two places higher than its ranking in the last such report, published in 2011.
Despite the low ranking for roads, Malta still ranked 28th overall in the ground transport infrastructure section of the report, largely as a result of its good port facilities (15th) and road density compared to population size (1st).
A total of 140 countries were assessed in the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness report
On the other hand, the island fared badly for price competitiveness in the travel and tourism industry section, ranking 90th overall.
The blame for this was attributed to fuel prices, with Malta ranking 124th in this based on data from the World Bank Development Indicators.
New Prime Minister Joseph Muscat made fuel costs a central tenet of his election campaign, pledging to lower bills by 25 per cent through the construction of a new gas fired power station funded by the private sector.
Another area where the island could improve is in the average number of days it takes to start a business, which is 40 in Malta, putting the island in 122nd position.