Over three years ago Malta began work on one of its most ambitious projects, SmartCity, an attempt to transform the country’s economy to one powered by knowledge.

Covering an area of 360,000 sq m along the coast between Ricasoli Point and Valletta’s Grand Harbour, SmartCity Malta offers office, residential and retail spaces.

All of the buildings in the development are built to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) guidelines. The idea is to create a sustainable development that will protect the environment and provide inhabitants with comfortable, efficient and healthy places for work and leisure.

Malta has moved into 11th position in financial market development according to the World Economic Forum’s Competitiveness Index 2010-11. Key performance indicators for the financial services sector confirmed its standing as a leading innovator in the Maltese economy. The new ranking is two up from the previous year.

The soundness of Maltese banks has been ranked in 10th position (up from 13th). This also means Malta has effectively retained its joint fifth position in this area, putting Malta firmly in the top 10 of countries with a solid banking sector.

Malta also moved up from one place to 12th position in the assessment carried out on the regulation of securities exchanges and from 12th to eighth position on the strength of auditing and reporting standards.

This WEF Index is based on an assessment of 139 countries. According to the report, the Maltese economy has also moved into 50th position worldwide, up two from the last publication.

Malta also featured strongly on the positive impact of rules on foreign direct investment (seventh), the quality of the educational system (20th) and country credit rating (28th).

The figures for financial services underscore recent performance figures published by the Maltese National Statistics Office showing that the financial sector’s gross value added in the first six months of 2010 increased by 75% over the same period in 2009.