Weaving Gozo’s threads of independence

Way back in 1978, economist John C. Grech published a book entitled Threads of Dependence, highlighting the dependence of Malta’s economy of the time upon foreign enterprises via the establishment of a strong textile industry.

Grech prophesied, all too correctly, that the presence of the clothing industry in Malta could not be permanent. Gozo had its fair share of this type of enterprise, firmly established at the Xewkija Industrial Estate, which was a main pillar of its economy, providing Gozitans with stable employment with lucrative wages which enabled the building of many a commodious family home.

We now live in another millennium, and on a very different planet. Those money-minting factories disappeared long ago. Their threads are no longer viable. Incidentally, nowadays a completely different kind of thread is in fashion – the thread of execution in computer science, which is the smallest sequence of programmed instructions that can be managed independently by a scheduler, typically as part of an operating system.

Software companies and financial services institutions have replaced the industrial factories of the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. These are dependent upon efficient and reliable telecommunication connectivity services. Indeed, today most kinds of enterprises rely to a considerable extent upon knowledge technology which cannot be transmitted without connectivity.

In the health sector, Gozo General Hospital is connected in this way to Mater Dei. Data, including high definition medical images, are relayed in real time, enabling specialists and consultants to assess, for instance, injuries suffered by patients in Gozo General Hospital directly from Mater Dei. Ad exemplum, this enables an assessment in seconds whether a patient can be safely flown to Mater Dei by helicopter or not.

The government of Malta, through the Ministry for Gozo, has identified a major deficiency with respect to the telecommunication connectivity services currently extended to the island of Gozo by virtue of the fact that there are no or limited redundant facilities to the existing single fibre link. This has a direct negative impact on both the residential and business Gozitan community, with future economic growth and potential investments being severely jeopardised due to this inherent single point of failure.

For while the existing band-width has enough capacity to handle all data sent from the hospital, from industry, from government departments and residencies, there exists no alternative route in case of failure of the single cable currently in operation. This handicap is one of the main reasons why for most of a quarter of a century until a few months ago, there was no new foreign direct investment in the island of Gozo.

The limited connectivity between Malta and Gozo will be addressed by deploying a second fibre optic cable system to render the connectivity between the two islands more resilient and at the same time augment the bandwidth carrying capacity to sustain future growth. By the end of January, 2014, the Ministry for Gozo completed the compilation of a technical and financial requirements document for the feasibility study for a second submarine fibre optic cable between Malta and Gozo. This was carried out in co-ordination with the Malta Communications Authority and Malta Enterprise since this forms part of a European Union co-funded Malta Enterprise Call for Tenders (Study) for a Digital Hub in Malta and Gozo.

On 20th June, 2014, Malta Enterprise issued a tender for a study about the setting up of a digital hub in Gozo, co-funded by the EU, costing €250,000. The closing date for this tender was 31 July, 2014. This study will substantiate and abridge the timeframe for the eventual demand for EU funding of the fibre optic cable itself for 2014-2020.

Undoubtedly, the fibre strands of a second fibre optic cable link will be Gozo’s major threads of economic independence: its most significant permanent link with Malta and the rest of the world.

Anton Refalo is Minister for Gozo