‘Not very comfortable’ about Smart City plans

While hailing the Smart City project as a “step forward” for the ICT industry in Malta, the president of the Malta Employers’ Association Pierre Fava is “not very comfortable” with the extent of the non-ICT development being contemplated by the foreign investors.
“I believed that Smart City was going to be a Smart City per se and around it there would have been some apartments and ancillary movement but not to the extent I have seen in the press. I have been to Dubai but I cannot compare Malta to Dubai. I was looking at Smart City as giving impetus to the hotel industry and to existing apartments in Malta,” Fava tells Business Today in a wide-ranging interview.
“What we are not very clear about is how employment will be created, where and in what areas. We know that there will be a lot of employment in IT and ancillary employment but the structure of the smart city and how it will operate till now has been very vague,” Fava says.
The MEA president insists that the area should be open to the public and the land around it should be turned into a public park. He also calls for a modernised commuting system to and from the North to the South of the island.

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