General information about Malta

Malta is a Mediterranean country which lies very close to Sicily and Italy on the north and has Libya to the south, it is a very densely populated country : experiences in this country has been very unique, the capital of Malta is  Valetta.

Malta has got two official languages which people here normally speak, which is English and Maltese, most of the Maltese people speak English also because of the British influence in Malta. They gained independence from the British in 1964 and became a republic in 1974. They have been an active member of the European Union and takes part in most of the European commission projects. I have been observing that European projects have been helping Malta to develop its  infrastructure growth in a big way, Malta is a Catholic country,  and we can see this by the way. There are so many churches in every street of Malta.

One of the things that I did not know before coming to Malta was it had the oldest freestanding structures in the world.the whole country of Malta is actually divided into three parts, the main Maltese Islands the Gozo Islands and the Comino islands . In the Gozo Islands actually very few people live, it is a beautiful place and I had been to  Gozo Islands during my birthday when the student network of Erasmus had organised an eventand trip to Gozo. When we hired a few farmhouses and visited the whole island. The third island is inhabited there are various ways and coastlines and harbours all over Malta.

The climate in Malta is subtropical and I am really impressed that there is mild winters here, it is snowing in Austria presently and this climate is like heaven. When I initially came to Malta. It was hot and the best thing that we used to do was when we used to go to the beach in the sun. Malta is facing huge organisation and infrastructure growth. There are a lot of new buildings being constructed and it is also said that it is one of the most densely populated countries in the world.

It is very interesting to see how conservative the economic system of Malta is, Maltese businesses generally don't take risks and are afraid of taking risks. The same goes with the banking industry, this has been very crucial because in the 2008 economic crisis Malta was not affected because of this reason. The major source of income in Malta still is limestone, because it is filled with limestone, it only produces 20% of the food needs and has very less freshwater, because of which a lot of food and fresh water comes from outside, one thing that I observed was supermarkets in Malta are much more expensive than the supermarkets in Germany or Austria, this is also because everything is imported from outside.

The local pay of an individual is not so high in Malta as compared to Germany and Austria, but still things are more expensive, the clubs and the restaurants are very cheap compared to Germany though, the government in Malta is investing a lot on education and upbringing the way people think.

There are two major mobile service providers the go mobile and Vodafone, I go with the go mobile, because they have very cheap student tariff rates with better services than Vodafone. Malta has a multilingual workforce and has got a large amount of immigrants, this is one of the issues which the country is facing the immigration issue from Africa.

When I came to Malta the transport system in Malta was run by Arriva,, which is a British company and has just taken over for a few years, but the local population is not happy with them. They had tried to demonstrate against this bus service and now next year onwards, the local government transport takes over the service. This can be seen as one of the biggest disasters that the company had made. This has also explained me the importance of market research before entering a different market.

The main national airlines of Malta is  air MaltaI got a chance to meet the executives of Air Malta in one of the conferences and what they were explaining was that air Malta is trying to change its brand image in a big way,, they have been successful. I would say to a large extent, because they have been able to bring a the basic concept of a national airlines into the hearts of the people, people feel attached to the airlines now there is also a school which teaches people how to fly,I was actually thinking of hiring a plane and fly on top of Malta and make a video.

The currency in Malta is  Euro . But before, they used to use a currency called Lira, when I speak to a few Maltese people. I realise there are more attached to the old currency than the new currency because they feel that the old currency was much more valuable.

Malta has a large tourism industry and a lot of hotels across Malta, the tourism industry in itself provides the largest source of income to the whole country.

Science and technology plays major role in Malta Malta has got a Malta Council for science and technology, which is developing one of the science centres in future, which I also visited, I got a presentation on how the science Centre is going to change the way science is taught to the kids of Malta.

The healthcare system in Malta is very similar to that in England, people don't have to pay a health insurance. Instead it is free by the government as  it is in England.

Maltese food is very much influenced by Spanish and Italian food with regards Gozo has got a very different kind of food culture than Malta. Food has been very important in the culture of Malta and rabbit is one of the most traditional foods that these people eat.

You can see a lot of festivals and feast all across Malta throughout the year, when I came there was a festival of light. Then there was a festival of chocolate. Then they were all Sts Day. There have been many carnivals, which takes place, you can see a lot of culture and tradition involved when you go to these festivals and I will be sharing these experiences in my other blogs. One of the thing that we have to understand is most of the festivals in Malta and related to   Saints .

Football is a very popular sport in Malta and people play a lot of football, there is a big stadium, which hosts national and international games. I also got an opportunity to go to one of the matches where official international team of Malta was playing, basketball is also a game that Maltese like water polo is also played.

I have a TV in my house, but since most of the channels in Malta come from Italy, so  they are in Italian. This is one of the reasons why Maltese people also know Italian.

About Me (Manish Abraham):I am pursuing MSc. in Engineering in Innovation and Product Management from University of Applied
Sciences Upper Austria, which involves Holistic integration of marketing, design and technology, combined with strategic thinking in order to develop product innovations in a sustainable way. Presently on  an Erasmus Exchange semester at the University of Malta . To Read More about me Click Here or just view my Video Resume. 

You can also read about me at http://www.manishabraham.com

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