The full story and dates are not yet known.
MDG was a very short lived company, founded by the Maltese government in conjunction with the Chinese. The only qualified glassmaker there, to my sketchy knowledge, was Vicente Boffo.
The government had hoped to get an enterprise as successful as Mdina going, using the same principles. Somebody who knows a bit what they're doing with glass and a load of inexperienced apprentices to learn - but it simply didn't work out. I believe it lost a lot of money.
Can't tell if this thing is a cat or a dog - it doesn't look very well made to me, so I doubt it would be by Boffo himself - more likely an inexperienced apprentice, under his tuition.
They did melt amber glass in the pot, which Mdina, to my knowledge, did not.