Malta is recording the most business activity and corporate profit in its history.
Confirmed against NSO Business Demography (active enterprises, enterprise births) and Eurostat / NSO national-accounts gross operating surplus of corporations. Both the count of active enterprises and the aggregate corporate gross operating surplus are at record nominal highs in 2024-2025. Active enterprise stock has risen roughly 35-40% since 2013; corporate gross operating surplus has roughly doubled in nominal terms over the same window, outpacing inflation. Schembri's framing is documentary fact at the aggregate level.
Confirmed against NSO Business Demography (active enterprises, enterprise births) and Eurostat / NSO national-accounts gross operating surplus of corporations. Both the count of active enterprises and the aggregate corporate gross operating surplus are at record nominal highs in 2024-2025. Active enterprise stock has risen roughly 35-40% since 2013; corporate gross operating surplus has roughly doubled in nominal terms over the same window, outpacing inflation. Schembri's framing is documentary fact at the aggregate level.
We tested Schembri's claim against NSO Business Demography Statistics 2013-2024 (active enterprises, enterprise births), Eurostat structural business statistics (sbs_sc_sca_r2 + nama_10_gdp) and NSO national-accounts gross operating surplus of corporations. These are the two primary measurement conventions for 'business activity / profit' — the firm-count side and the aggregate-corporate-profit side.
Verdict lands at True because both measures sit at record nominal highs in 2024 data — active enterprise stock up ~35-40% across the legislature and corporate gross operating surplus roughly doubled in nominal terms, with real-terms series also at peaks after deflating by HICP. The deep-dive lays out the trajectories and the standard caveat that 'most in history' is mechanically true for any growing economy; this editorial note is methodology only.
Does Malta really have the most business activity and profit in history
Tested against NSO Business Demography Statistics 2013-2024, Eurostat structural business statistics, and NSO national-accounts gross operating surplus of corporations. Schembri's framing is documentary fact at the aggregate level: both the count of active enterprises and the headline corporate-profit aggregate are at record nominal highs in 2024-2025, and the real-terms trajectory is positive even after deflating by Maltese HICP inflation across the 2022-2024 surge.
Active enterprises — record stock and consistent firm formation
NSO Business Demography records the count of active Maltese enterprises rising from approximately 33,000-34,000 in 2013 to over 46,000 in 2024 — an increase of roughly 35-40% across the PL legislature. The series moves up almost every year, with the only inflection in 2020 (Covid). Enterprise births (newly registered firms) have run at roughly 4,000-5,000 per year throughout the period, consistently above the pre-2013 baseline.
Corporate gross operating surplus — roughly doubled in nominal terms
The national-accounts measure of corporate profitability — gross operating surplus and mixed income of corporations — has approximately doubled in nominal terms from roughly €3-4 billion in 2013 to €7-8 billion in 2024. After deflating by cumulative HICP inflation (~25-30% across the same window), the real-terms increase is in the 50-60% range. Both nominal and real series sit at record highs.
What the framing does not test
'Most business activity / profit in history' is a nominal-records statement that is almost mechanically true for any growing economy with positive real GDP growth — and Malta has had positive real growth in every PL-legislature year except 2020 (Covid). The more meaningful tests are: corporate-profit share of GDP, profit per active enterprise, distribution of profit across sectors and firm size. Those tests do not contradict Schembri's framing but reveal more nuance — corporate-profit share has held around 40-45% of GDP through the period (high by EU standards), while profit concentration in the gaming, financial services and ICT sectors remains substantial. Companion fact-check #265 unpacks the sectoral composition.
So is the claim accurate?
Yes. Both headline measures — active enterprises and corporate gross operating surplus — sit at record nominal highs in 2024 data, with the real-terms series also at peaks even after the 2022-2024 inflation surge. Schembri's framing is documentary fact at the aggregate level.
Verdict: True.