In a news conference, the Minister for the Economy, European Funds and Lands Silvio Schembri officially launched the SME Week for this year. The SME Week will be spread over a number of weeks between October and November, with various associations and social partners staging activities to foster more awareness about small and medium businesses.
Minister Silvio Schembri explained how SMEs form the basis of our economy with over 90% of the market share. “As a Government we are committed to continue working with SME’s in this country and create measures to assist them,” repeated Minister Schembri. He mentioned how during this year there were several schemes and measures both from European funds and local funds aimed specifically at helping SMEs.
Among others, Minister Schembri mentioned the Venture Capital Fund which is a fund with a total of €10 million, which will help start-ups on innovative technologies such as video game, esports, ICT, fintech, life sciences, pharma, green energy, filming industry, agritech, AI among others. He also mentioned the Seed Investment Scheme, a scheme that offers incentives in the form of tax credits to Maltese companies after they have invested in start ups.
“We know how much red tape is an obstacle, therefore, even as promised in the election manifesto, we are working on three projects that will drastically reduce red tape. These are: that every company has the right to open a bank account; Credit Review Office where companies that have been denied a loan have their request reviewed again; and the data repository where documents of a particular company are gathered in one place and various Government entities can be given access to them, without the need for the same documents to be presented to the various entities,” said Minister Schembri.
He also mentioned the European funds where work was done to reduce the bureaucracy and simplify the way companies, especially small and micro ones, can access European funds. “This very year we announced schemes for the purchase of machinery, digitization projects and renewable energy, among others and we saw the European funds make the difference and give the necessary help so that SME’s can invest more in their companies,” added the Minister.
Minister Schembri also announced that in collaboration with the European Investment Fund Malta will be receiving €16.55 million in European funds to continue helping small and medium businesses.
