In Saturday’s The Times one can read about how well the Maltese economy goes in the article Economy Is Moving In The Right Direction (which is true).

All figures in the article are given in percentage form. Although all figures are correct, they should, in my opinion, instead be presented in absolute terms and not percentage-wise.

That would allow one to see how well or bad the Maltese economy does compared to the richer countries in the EU. I take GNI as an example because I do not find more recent figures for Malta in terms of GNP.

GNI is Gross National Income per capita. GNP is Gross National Product. Without going into details one can simplify and say that GNI measures the income and GNP the production. As an example, I choose Germany, which has a GNI of $44,270 (2011), to compare with Malta’s $18,620 the same year. If Malta’s GNI increases one year by, say, two per cent and Germany, say, by only one per cent, the gap between the two countries still does not decrease but would in fact increase. Germany would now have a GNI of $44,712 while Malta would have $18,992.

The difference in absolute terms between the GNI for the different countries has, in this scenario, increased by $70. The gap between the two countries has, in the example, been bigger despite the fact that Malta’s increase in percentage was twice as big as Germany’s.

Of course, if you choose another country, higher up on the GNI list, the difference would be even bigger.

Malta is doing well and it can be proud of its economy but it would be more correct if the figures were presented in a more accurate way. As they are presented now they fool people to think that the situation is much better than it is.