Tuesday's massive power cuts in Malta and Gozo are estimated to have cost the economy between €8 and €10 million, according to economist Edward Scicluna.
Prof. Scicluna, who was elected to the European Parliament earlier this month, told The Times Business: "If we exclude the losses to households and estimate only marketable goods and services I estimate that the economic loss caused by non-activity resulting from the outage ranges from €8 to €10 million which is about half our national daily value-added.
"We may add to that another €2 to £3 million worth of losses caused by damages arising from loss of transactions and or spoiling of goods caused by the same outage."
When contacted, economist Gordin Cordina preferred not to comment on the economic cost of Tuesday's blackout.
Malta and Gozo were hit by a total blackout on Tuesday as both power stations shut down completely twice.
Malta Employers Association director-general Joseph Farrugia said the power cuts were serious and one had to get to the real cause of the problem.
"Obviously one has to look at the cost to industry and financial services but we have to get to the root of the problem. I find it unacceptable that Enemalta initially said it did not know what caused the first power cut. I hope this will not be a frequent occurance," he said.
The hotel and catering industry seemed well prepared for short-term power cuts, and only one or two hoteliers contacted the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association asking for information about when power would be restored, chief executive officer George Schembri said. There were no complaints from MHRA members as most operated thanks to generators and managers informed guests of the situation.
"These are things that can happen anywhere," Mr Schembri said. "The industry can handle one-off incidents like Tuesday's. However, if there are repeats, it will begin to affect the industry negatively."
However, a hotelier who preferred not to be named, said that although it was difficult to calculate the cost of the black-out, running generators throughout the day incurred hotels significant fuel expenses.
Although generators ensured that inconvenience was minimised, staff were forced to handle guests' complaints and controlling 'damage', the hotelier said. Considerable chaos reigned for a while as the power failure brought down systems which took some time to reset.
The i-gaming sector was among the best prepared for black-outs and sources said operations ran seamlessly.
Chamber of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises - GRTU director-general Vince Farrugia said Tuesday's total blackout had shown how vulnerable Malta is by relying on only one source for its power. He said this incident really shows that Malta needs to invest heavily in alternative energy sources.
"The decision has been taken so let's get on with it. We need to invest in upgrading our power plants now," he said.
Mr Farrugia also said that Malta's EU membership would help it avoid similar power cuts "thanks to the €23 million in EU funds which will connect us to the European grid in Sicily". He also said that it would be a good idea if Enemalta had to be insured to cover it for such total blackouts.
Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Enterprise director-general Kevin Borg downplayed Tuesday's blackout saying the Chamber had received no specific complaints or reports of damages from its members. He added that businesses which were likely to be most affected by power cuts had their own backup system.
Mr Borg said that the government had given priority to restoring the power supply to industry.