Henley and Partners organized GRCC 2018 in Dubai and during his speech Dr. Chris Kalin, spoke about the success story of Malta.
No single country exemplifies the success story of investment migration more than Malta.
Malta has a rich and complex history, marked by many interactions with Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Normans, French, and British over the course of the centuries. It is only in recent decades that Malta has experienced true independence, and the long struggle to get to this point means that the Maltese people hold their sovereignty sacred.
If Malta was to hold its weight in an international landscape being completely reconfigured by globalization, it would need to assert its sovereignty and reduce its reliance on tourism, on external donors, and on traditional means of generating capital.
This is precisely what the government is able to achieve with investment migration.
Since the launch of the Maltese citizenship-by-investment program, the Maltese passport has opened doors for many people from all over the world – and has put Malta on the map worldwide. And it has already given an incredible boost to the Maltese economy and society.
I want to take a moment to acknowledge just a few of Malta’s astounding achievements in this year alone.
- During the first half of 2018, Malta became the fastest growing economy in the Eurozone, boasting an economic growth rate of more than 5% — this despite Malta being the smallest Eurozone member. Malta is in fact now outperforming all other EU countries in several key economic indicators.
- Malta’s debt-to-GDP ratio has fallen by nearly 30% in recent years and now stands as one of the lowest in the EU.
- The country’s unemployment rate is now less than 4%, which puts it in an impressive second place in the EU, just after Germany – and probably soon ahead of Germany.
- The property market in Malta, which took a knock during the last crisis, is now the fastest growing in the world.
- In a policy paper released earlier this year, the IMF issued a vote of confidence for the Government of Malta and urged it to continue its successful strategy of reform.
Nobody could deny these simply stunning achievements.
One of the key drivers of the Malta success story is in many ways the Malta Individual Investor Program. It has brought over 1 billion Euros into Malta since its launch and has also helped the country reverse a decades-long deficit trend and for the first time to report a budget surplus.
The most encouraging part of this story is the fact that it is being repeated — to various degrees — all over Europe, as well as further afield. A recent report put the total amount of foreign direct investment generated in Europe through investment migration programs at 25 billion Euros. If we add the revenues generated in the rest of the world, we are looking at a truly staggering figure.
As we take a moment to pause and recognize the sheer scale of our impact, I am sure that we will have many such moments over the course of the next few days. Gathering together once a year in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East gives us the opportunity to celebrate the progress we have made since our last milestone and to map out where we want to be one year from now.
The full speech is available here
