Malta Enterprise launches two export schemes

Malta Independent 20/05/2014: Two schemes aiming to encourage local businesses to either start exporting or to expand their overseas trade have been launched by Malta Enterprise this afternoon.

One of the programmes – Go Global – is specifically aimed at would-be or novice exporters, while the Global Growth Competition is targeted at more established exporters. Both programmes are being supported through HSBC’s Malta Trade for Growth Fund.

The Go Global scheme aims to provide financial and technical assistance to 20 companies whose revenue from exports is less than 20% of their total revenue.

The assistance provided through the Go Global scheme is three-fold. Malta Enterprise will assign each company with an advisor who will draw up a free diagnostic report assessing its export readiness and identifying its key capability, research and marketing gaps...read on.

Taking a timely snapshot of our tourism industry

Times of Malta 11/05/2014: According to an economic impact report by the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC, 2014), last year the travel and tourism industry in Malta contributed 13.6 per cent of the country’s GDP. This figure is expected to rise by 5.6 per cent this year.

WTTC reported that the tourism industry alone has directly generated more than 25,500 jobs. This figure is forecast to grow to 27,000. It translates to 15.5 per cent of the total employment in Malta and Gozo.

Arguably, positive results do not come by chance. In the past decade, Maltese governments’ concerted efforts may have helped ensure that our tourism industry remains a major contributor to the Maltese economy. The fruitful and collaborative relationships among tourism stakeholders also augur well for the sustainability of the islands’ tourism industry.

A 2013 report by the economic policy department of the Ministry of Finance aimed to establish a strategy for accommodation development, while taking into account the type of accommodation required, the optimum...read on.

Weightlifting: The Malta Open Championships

The Malta Weightlifting Association is to organize the Malta Open Championships, to be held on Sunday, June 1st at Cottonera sport complex.

Malta Today 20/05/2014: Special guests this year shall include the national team of Scotland, who are in full preparation for the upcoming Commonwealth games to be held in Glasgow.

The competition will be divided into different categories, with the Cadets and newcomers starting at 8.45. The second competition shall see the Men Youths U-15 and U-17 followed by the Women category.

The final two shall see the Men Juniors and Seniors. The Scotland national team will be in Malta also for a week training camp this will be a good opportunity to the local athletes to train with these athletes that are in their...read on.

Don't Miss Malta: Eight Reasons to Visit a Mediterranean Gem

Huffington Post 19/05/2014: The eight points on a Maltese cross stand for the eight original "langues" or foreign origins of the care-giving Knights Hospitaller of St. John who were gifted the islands of Malta in the early 1500s. They can also stand for eight good reasons to travel to the richly historical country. Add in glorious Mediterranean weather, the compact terrain, the convenient euro currency, the common English language and the appeal of the island mini-republic just 60 miles from Sicily, should be irresistible.

Design
After a small band of St. John Knights and native Maltese survived the Turkish onslaught of 1565, Grand Master Jean Parisot de Valette engaged architects to design the first city built on a grid plan, easy to defend and allowing sea breeze ventilation. Heavily bombed during World War II, that namesake city Valetta has been rebuilt, lined with residences bearing charming galleria balconies. Currently, noted architect Renzo Piano is erecting a new Parliament Building and...read on.

Travel experience: Malta in your mouth

This bite-size country is easy to devour in one fell swoop. And you’ll want to, it’s delicious. Malta does mean ‘honey’ after all...  

TNT Magazine 19/05/2014: I must be hungry. I can tell because every intro I am coming up with involves a food analogy: Malta is like tangy cheese/fresh fish/salty ham. It’s not, but that’s all I can think about. And it’s all Malta’s fault. Its food is amazing; but more of that later. I’ve had my lunch now, so I will focus on another focal point of this country: its history.

This diminutive country has a history so jam-packed, so varied, that it’s a wonder it hasn’t sunk under the weight of it all.

The red phoneboxes and right-hand-drive cars remind us that Malta has only been independent of the British Empire since 1964; the guttural sounds of the Maltese language are due to the Arab rule; this was preceded by the Romans, who established the Roman Catholic Church still so prevalent; and this is yet to mention the influences from the Phoenicians before them, the stint of the Knights of Malta and even Napoleon, who hung out there for six days, capturing it on his way to Egypt, as you do...read on.

Tourist attractions in Valletta, Malta

trip travel blog19/05/2014: A lot of tourists visiting Malta travel around the whole island and have little time to spend on its capital, Valleta. Luckily, the major sights and attractions to see and visit there even in a day are very close to each other so it is very easy to walk through the city and see them all.

In this way, the time you spend there will be worth it and you’ll be able to spend the rest of your holidays elsewhere in Malta...read on.

Air Malta gears up for summer with a 25% discount

Air Malta to offer 25% discount on flights to a number of European cities between July and September

MaltaToday 11/05/2014:  This summer travellers can enjoy a number of discounted flights thanks to an Air Malta seat sale offering a discount of 25% on selected routes starting today.

Tickets must be bought between 11 and 25 May and the discount applies to travel between July and September 2014.

The offer is valid to flights operating on these destinations: London (Heathrow and Gatwick), Manchester, Amsterdam, Brussels, Rome and its newest routes, Venice and Parma...read on.

Let's do it, Malta

Let's do it Malta (underwater clean'up Valetta) from Xavier Neg- on Vimeo.

The Prehistoric Megalithic Temples of Malta

Baldhiker 12/05/2014: A stay in Malta would not have been complete without visiting at least one of the Megalithic Temples. On Malta there are 11 in total and some of them date back to a time way before the pyramids of Egypt and Stonehenge for example, making them some of the oldest religious sites on earth.  7 of the temples here are UNESCO World Heritage Sites I was in an area to the south west of the main island where I took the great opportunity to visit two of them at once. Ħaġar Qim and Mnajdra, both built in the fourth millenium BC. They are about 500 metres away from each other but both included in one entry via a very visual display and museum...read on.

European Commission sees 'robust' growth outlook for the Maltese economy

MIA News 05/05/2014: The European Commission is expecting the Maltese economy to continue to grow “robustly” in the coming two years according to the latest economic forecasts published in Brussels this morning.

The forecast, published twice a year, says that economic expansion is expected to be driven by domestic demand, in particular strong household consumption and a number of large scale investment projects.

At the same time, inflationary pressures are expected to gradually return, but overall inflation is forecast to be contained on the back of the reduction of utility tariffs.

The commission said real GDP growth is forecast to moderate slightly but to remain robust, reaching 2.3 per cent this year and 2.1 per cent next year mainly thanks to domestic demand. It was 2.4 per cent last year.

Full article: click here

Malta International Airport hits April record with 13.7% passenger increase

Times of Malta 05/05/2014: Malta International Airport, in April handled 376,935 passengers, an increase of 13.7 per cent when compared to the same period last year. 

The UK continued to lead as the biggest market, increasing its passengers arriving on Malta by 14.8 per cent. Germany and France registered even higher growth at 21.6 and 21.4 per cent respectively.

“The increased traffic we’ve been seeing between winter and spring shows that Malta is no longer perceived as just a summer destination among holidaymakers. These results augur well for a busy summer,” said Malta International Airport CEO Markus Klaushofer.

Aircraft movements for April increased by 11.1 per cent. This mirrored the increase of 11.7 per cent in seat capacity which reached 491,856, when compared to the corresponding period of the previous year.

Seat Load Factor registered an increase of 1.3 percentage points, while the maximum take-off weight (MTOW) increased by 10.5 per cent when compared to 2013 figures.

Cargo and mail registered a decline of 8.7 per cent over the previous year. (source)

Malta Arts Festival launched

Times of Malta 05/05/2014: The Malta Council for Culture and the Arts (MCCA) has unveiled its programme for the ninth edition of the Malta Arts Festival 2014, Malta’s largest arts festival. The features include a video opera where film and reality mirror each other, a circus which brings together poetry and humour and a film festival under the stars.

Running from July 14 July to August 2 , the festival will include artists from Croatia, the UK, Spain, the Netherlands, Czech Republic, South Africa and Russia along with Maltese.

Most of these events will be held in the Mediterranean Conference Centre, Pjazza Teatru Rjal and the newly-restored Fort St Elmo.

Following the previous artistic director’s departure last December, the programme was put together by an artistic committee composed of British-Malaysian dancer and choreographer Mavin Khoo, composer Ruben Zahra, theatre director and actor Toni Attard...read on.

Employment policy will make Malta more competitive – Prime Minister

Malta Today 02/05/2014: The national employment policy launched today will help make Malta’s economy more competitive, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said.

Addressing the ‘Charge the vote’ activity organised by the Labour Youth Forum in Pembroke, Muscat said the new employment policy would make the labour workforce more flexible.

The national employment policy proposes that maternity leave is paid by the government, minimum-wage earners will receive a top-up by the state and persons with disabilities will be allowed better representation in the working field.

“The maternity leave fund should cut out gender discrimination at the place of work. Only half of around 4,000 working apply for maternity leave every year. It seems like these...read on.

Malta: A Mediterranean Jewel

somekindofwanderlust.com 03/05/2014: Despite sitting just below Italy – a mere boat ride from Sicily – Malta has remained a little-known island, a tiny jewel hidden in the Mediterranean. Most people have heard the name, but ask them to point it out on a map and they’ll be stumped.

In May, I travelled to this rugged, sunburnt isle to find out what it has to offer beyond a stunning filming location for epics such as Troy, Alexander, Gladiator and more recently, Game Of Thrones. As I discovered, plenty.

Malta is home to three UNESCO World Heritage Sites and has a long, deeply religious history. Fun fact: There are more than 360 churches in the Catholic country – that’s nearly one for every day of the year.

From ancient walled cities to rainbow-colored fishing boats and electric blue grottos, Malta is a veritable visual overload...read on.

How Malta has populated the world with 'little plastic people'

Britain’s Daily Telegraph has carried a feature on how Malta has populated the world with little people – 2.7 billion little plastic people produced by Playmobil since 1974. Writer Harry Wallop went behind the scenes in the ‘people factory’ in Hal Far.

Times of Malta 27/04/2014: “Forty years ago, the world was in crisis. Banks were collapsing, a US president resigned in disgrace, the price of oil had quadrupled.

“But in 1974, on the tiny island of Malta, a new world order was taking shape – peopled by little, 2.9 inch plastic figures: Playmobil.”

In that first year, he wrote, there were just three men: a construction worker in stripy bib (no sign of high-vis jackets in those days), a knight with a silver helmet and an American Indian with a feather in his hair. Since then 3,995 different designs have come off the production lines in a slightly scruffy factory, along the road from the airport.

German toy company Brandstatter asked chief designer Hans Beck  to come up with a toy that used less plastic than other toys the company was making, otherwise the firm would go bust. The result was a little man, made to fit into the palm of ...read on.

Call for projects under Malta Digital Games Fund issued

Times of Malta 01/05/2014: A new call for project proposals under the Malta Digital Games Fund has been announced by Culture Minister Owen Bonnici during an event held at the Takeoff Business Incubator at the University.

For the first time, the Malta Digital Games Fund will be collaborating with the Takeoff Business Incubator to provide a more holistic support to beneficiaries.

Dr Bonnici augured that this collaboration would open the path to further synergies between the various stakeholders in the games.

He said that in the space of a few years, the digital games sector had emerged as a very promising dimension of the creative enterprise sector, generating employment, and opening up opportunities for internationalisation and innovation...read on.

10 years of EU membership through the business eye

Malta Today 04/04/2014: Ten years since Malta accessed the European Union, the country’s business community has been provided with the necessary platform to expand their produce and improve their opportunities, but while the majority of companies have flourished amid increasing competition, some failed to meet EU standards.

In the wake of Malta’s milestone anniversary, Sunday newspaper Illum interviewed four business directors – all of whom voiced their delight at how the local business community improved since May 2004.

Famalco’s Business Director Hermann Mallia, Saint James Hospital Director Maria Bugeja, Impressions Managing Director Ron Mifsud and the CEO of Malta Business Bureau Joe Tanti, all agreed that Malta’s EU membership provided the necessary...read on.

Musing on maritime Malta

The opening of the first marine environmental education
centre in Dwejra, Gozo, was a red-letter day for ocean literacy
in the Maltese Islands.

 

Times of Malta 04/05/2014: European Maritime Day (May 21), which was celebrated in Malta last year, is the perfect red letter day to reflect on the oft-overlooked marine and maritime legacy of the Maltese archipelago.

In an island state like ours, whose territorial waters are almost 14 times bigger than the islands’ miniscule area, and whose coastline is almost 300 kilometres long, one would take it as a given that Malta fosters a maritime vocation. And yet one gets the impression that, bar for a small intrepid fishing community, the Maltese have always been introduced to, and taken out to sea by their colonisers, with the Phoenicians, the Knights of St John and the British being the most prominent in sharing their naval prowess with the native Maltese.

Since Joe Borg’s term as EU Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, the European Commission has sought a more comprehensive and sustainable exploitation of European seas, and with sound reason too. The numbers are very compelling. Out of the 28 EU states, 23 have a coastline, 41 per cent of the EU population, or 206 million citizens, live in coastal areas, and marine and coastal activities in the EU account for...read on.

Malta Fashion Week in Valletta this month

Times of Malta 03/05/2014: This year’s seven-day Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week will for the first time take place in Valletta.

Valletta 2018 Chairman Jason Micallef said the event will be held with the support of the foundation. It will form part of the events in the run-up to Valletta’s European Capital of Culture in 2018.

Iconic locations such as St George’s Square, the National Library, the Mediterranean Conference Centre and Fort St Elmo would provide the backdrop as well as the new stairs to Hastings Gardens.

Art and design students from Leeuwarden, in the Netherlands, which is Valletta’s co-European Capital of Culture in 2018, will be collaborating with students from the Institute of Art and Design within the MCAST, working on a collaborative project with students in Malta during Fashion Week.

Owen Bonnici, Minister for Justice, Culture and Local Government said: “For the first time, the government is not only acknowledging the...read on.

Tourism students on field trip to Malta

Level  I BA Tourism Management students recently spent seven days in Malta as part of their studies.

Bournemouth University 30/04/2014: The students were investigating tourism development, planning, operations and tourist behaviour during the field trip. During the trip students met with a number of tourism industry professionals, including representatives from Visit Malta, Air Malta, The Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association, Malta Planning Authority, and the Ministry of Gozo.

Students were able to look at the plans for Malta’s capital city Valletta as it prepares to become European Capital of Culture in 2018; explored the development of ecotourism on Malta’s sister island Gozo; experienced the redevelopment of Malta’s Three Cities for heritage and cultural tourism; visited new developments such as the National Aquarium; and investigated dark tourism provision at the catacombs...read on

20 Things Every Maltese Knows To Be True

Davinia Hamilton Blog 29/04/2014:

1. There is no lunch better than a couple of slices of Maltese bread with good olive oil, tomatoes, salt and pepper, and an ice-cold Cisk to wash it down.

2. If you leave Malta to live abroad, you will eventually end up with a group of friends which unfailingly includes a number of Maltese.

3. Similarly, if you have left Malta and look forward to a holiday back home, you will return to find many of your friends no longer live there either.

4. A true friend brings you a supply of Twistees, galletti and gbejniet when they visit. Bonus friend points if they also manage to squeeze a couple of bottles of Kinnie into their suitcase.

5. You will never admit it, but you secretly look forward to the Eurovision and even feel an inexplicable surge of pride when the Maltese singer takes to the stage.

6. There is no better way to end a long night out than stopping for a breakfast of pastizzi in Rabat.

7. There is no such thing as the six degrees of separation in Malta. Even in extreme...read on.

Malta 2014: Mehliana, Harrell, Brecker

The 24th edition of the annual Maltese Jazz Festival in July headlines with Mehliana, Tom Harrell, Kneebody and Randy Brecker

Jazz Journal 28/04/2914: Malta’s 24th annual jazz festival returns this summer to the open-air setting of Ta’Liesse, Valletta, Malta from 17 to 19 July.

Headliners this year include Tom Harrell's Colors of a Dream (featuring Esperanza Spalding), Brad Mehldau's and Mark Guiliana's Mehliana, and Randy Brecker's Brecker Bros Reunion Band, the latter revisiting the seminal fusion album Heavy Metal Bebop. Other acts confirmed to appear include the Laurent Coq Dialogue Trio, Kneebody, and Warren Wolf, as well as a selection of local and fringe artists.

The festival has passed through various manifestations since it was founded by Charles Gatt in 1991. The current artistic director Sandro Zerafa told Jazz Journal: “The festival was outsourced to a private company from 2006 to 2008. The result was a watered-down populist approach with few 'real' jazz acts. The Malta Council for Culture and the Arts took the festival back in 2009 under my artistic direction and it has been...read on.

The island that will warm your heart: Malta packs a punch with a touch of home from home

DailyStarSunday 27/04/2024: MALTA is like being at home but with the heat turned up....

Valletta, the capital, has proudly kept its red post boxes, everyone speaks English, they drive on the left and use British plugs.

No wonder thousands of Brits move there and even more visit each year.

It might be just a tiny dot in the middle of the Mediterranean but for sightseeing and shopping it more than punches above its weight.

Here you can see the world’s oldest freestanding temples – built long before the Egyptian pyramids or Stonehenge – visit medieval palaces and 359 churches.

There is also stunning lace, olive oil, decent wine, creamy goats cheese, silver jewellery and colourful glassware to buy.

Malta has been used as a film location hundreds of times, including for blockbuster Gladiator and the first series of Game Of Thrones...read on

Polaroid of the week: Medieval Mdina, Malta

Globetrottergirls.com 20/04/2014: "Before I returned to Germany from Malta, I hired a car to see more of the tiny state. My friend Mei and I set off to explore the fishing villages, little bays and historic towns on the little island – and this turned out to be my favorite day in Malta!

One of the most memorable stop on our road trip was Mdina, a medieval hilltop town that still feels like the 15^th century. It is believed that the city was first settled in 700BC by the Phoenicians – nearly 3,000 years ago! The walled city is the former capital of Malta and was suggested as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1998  (it is still to be decided if Mdina is declared UNESCO World Heritage).

Walking around the narrow streets of the town, passing medieval churches, the palace and the well-preserved, for Malta typical limestone buildings felt like a...read on."