Malta Leads EU Accession States On Internet Usage

by Ulrika Lomas, Tax-News.com, Brussels

03 March 2004

The latest e-Europe Progress Report has revealed that Malta is significantly ahead of most EU accession countries in terms of internet access and utilisation of e-commerce.

According to the report, 49% of Maltese homes are connected to the internet, a figure that places the jurisdiction top of the league amongst the ten accession countries and three candidate countries (Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey) studied in the survey.

The island was ranked second place behind Slovenia in terms of Personal Computer ownership, with 58% of those polled claiming to own a PC. The study also found that Malta has 70 secure internet servers per million inhabitants, far higher than EU15 average of 48.

On the business front, the study found that 73% of Maltese firms had a website, also the highest proportion amongst the accession states. Of these, 20% had received orders online, whilst a third of the respondents reported that e-commerce generated over 1% of their revenues.

Dr Austin Gatt, Technology and Investments Minister, told a recent press briefing that the state of the island’s internet and telecommunications infrastructure was crucial to the decision making of prospective investors. He added that the government's goal is to achieve a future ranking on a par with the most advanced EU countries, namely those in the Nordic region.

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