Between January and March 2000, the pace of promotional activities related to the Information Society in Malta suddenly calmed down. Everyone adopted a 'let's wait and see' attitude since Malta had to open formal negotiations for EU membership in February. Then in March, the first chapters of the "Acquis Communautaire" to be negotiated between Malta and the Commission were announced. The Government hinted several times that the full liberalisation of the telecommunications sector was imminent, but the government declined to give a precise date.

Very few public events were held in the period under observation. However, the issue of liberalisation of telecommunications cropped up several times in different public events, which were not discussing directly ICT. One of the most important was the annual conference held by the Malta Federation of Industry (http://www.foi.org.mt) on the 16^th of February with the theme "The Maltese Economy: Realities and Opportunities". During the conference, the Minister for Finance, the Minister for Economic Services, top-officials from several ICT companies and industry analysts expressed their worries, hopes and wishes for the telecommunications sector.

The Employment and Training Corporation (ETC) published in March a draft national plan for an Information Technology Literate Workforce. It proposes the setting up of evening community centres in state schools which already have personal computers, offering free Internet access to citizens who still do not have the means for such personal access. The strategy identified the main segments of the workforce that would be affected. The ETC is the government's agency for employment.

• The first Internet portal based in Malta - di-ve.com - was launched in February to stimulate Maltese content on the Internet. Terranet Ltd, a subsidiary of Maltacom plc, launched the website, featuring news, sports, business, entertainment and streaming radio - on. (http://www.di-ve.com). The Internet portal is being branded as a one-stop-shop for Internet content originating in Malta. It goes beyond the aims of a normal website in that it provides viewers with up-to-date information covering a wide range of issues on a daily basis besides allowing users to actively make use of the site.

• Another Maltese Internet portal, SearchMalta (http://www.searchmalta.com), in February 2000 Search Malta received over 2 million hits (600,000 page views), confirming its leading position as the most popular Maltese website.

IBM organised the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) Winning Team Forum in Malta in March. It is organised on a regular basis by IBM for the each region as a thank you to the highest achievers among its employees.