Malta can create an island home for digital innovation and invention, allowing a safe haven for new industries to develop, MEP Roberta Metsola said.
Speaking at the blockchain summit, MEP Roberta Metsola, who has worked on Blockchain on a European level, outlined her vision for Malta and Gozo as the tech islands of the future.
She rallied for increased public spending on both traditional and digital infrastructure saying, “Malta and Gozo may well be the blockchain islands, but what I want to see Malta becoming the tech destination of choice for the future.
"We have the ideal environment and we can create an island home for digital innovation, invention, and allow a safe haven for new industries to develop aided and protected by avantguard legislation and policy decisions.
"But to do that we have to match the fantastic enthusiasm I’ve seen today with massive public investment in both traditional and technological infrastructure and maintain the right regulatory ambition we need for this sector to grow.”
MEP Metsola made the case for Malta saying that as an archipelago Malta and Gozo had always had to put innovation at the forefront of their economic policy.
“We have harnessed emerging technologies to create new spheres of economic growth, we got it right with maritime, gaming and of course financial services. We grew because we realised the potential that these sectors had to offer and we used our size to our advantage to move quickly and expertly,” she said.
She said that while distributed ledger technology, blockchain, artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies were revolutionsing the way business was conducted, money-laundering concerns had to be addressed “This new, misunderstood, system must not create new dark-nets of anonymity to allow new places for criminals to hide ill-gotten wealth,” she said.
Dr Metsola praised the Maltese legislative framework passed in the summer underscoring that Malta to “be ready to understand and reap all the benefits that DLT and blockchain had to offer.
This was a good step forward as was the setting up of a new Malta Digital Innovation Authority, tasked with overseeing businesses in sector, but Malta had to remain adaptable and on its toes.