What would you do if you inherited a significant amount of money?

An EU survey has found that 28 per cent of the Maltese would spend it on things they always wanted to buy, such as a car or a holiday.

That is the biggest percentage in the EU and other surveyed nations including Japan, China and the United States.

In contrast, 42% of Romanians, 41% of Turkish and Chinese respondents and a third of Bulgarians would start a business.

The aim of the question - part of an entrepreneurship survey - was to see how many respondents would choose to invest the money in starting up a business instead of, for example, saving the money, using it to buy a house or to repay their mortgage.

In most countries, a relative majority of respondents would either save the money or use it to buy a house or repay their mortgage.

Respondents in the UK, Estonia, Ireland and Norway most frequently said they would use their inheritance to buy a house or to repay their mortgage (38%-41%).

The US (48%), South Korea (44%) and Japan (43%) were the countries where respondents were the most likely to want to save any money that they inherited.

While Malta topped the list of countries where the money would be spent on things that one always wanted to buy (e.g. a holiday or a car), it was closely followed by Latvia at 27% and the Japanese on 26%.

The proportion of respondents who said they would work less or even stop working if they inherited a considerable amount of money remained below 10% in all countries except for Sweden, where 10% selected this response.

The results for Malta were that 12% would opt to start a business, 21% would buy a house or repay a mortgage, 30% would save the money, 28% would spend it on something they always wanted, such as a holiday or car and 5% would work less or stop working.