Shop owners will be given discretion to decide whether to open on Sundays and public holidays and will also be allowed to extend their opening times during certain weekdays, according to government proposals that are up for public consultation.

Economy Minister Chris Cardona told a press conference this morning that shop owners should be given bigger discretion when it came to opening times. Different shops have different client bases and current circumstances have also changed customer exigencies.

Dr Cardona said all shops that are currently not allowed to open on Sundays will be given the option to do so, as long as they remain closed on any other day. Opening times will be between 5am and 6pm.

Supermarkets and grocers in non-tourist areas will be allowed to open between 6am and 1pm. The 350 square meter restriction on grocers in tourist areas will be removed.

All shops will also have the option to extend opening times until 10pm on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, without the need to acquire any special permit.

They will also be allowed to open on public holidays, including Easter Sunday and Carnival, but excluding Good Friday. With the current procedure, the responsible Minister has to issue a special exemption each time.

Licensed catering establishments, nightclubs and discotheques where dancing is held and which do not already have a permit to remain open for business until 4am during Carnival and on Easter Sunday and New Year’s Eve will also be permitted to open.

The exemptions enjoyed by Valletta shops will be extended to shops in the Three Cities when a ship is anchored on that side of Grand Harbour. There are currently more than 16,000 registered shops. Pharmacies will not be included in the reform.

 

Employee rights to be safeguarded

The Economy Minister said laws and regulations granting rights to employees will remain unchanged and conditions, benefits and salaries of shop workers will be safeguarded. Dr Cardona said the majority of shop owners are in favour of having bigger discretion, as surveys have shown, but “progress should not come at the detriment of others.”

When asked about the target date for implementing these new regulations, Dr Cardona said much of the work will have been done by October, after which it would be up to the government to give a political direction and push for the introduction of the reform. The public consultation period ends on 24 October.

Dr Cardona said the reform is only one of several initiatives aimed at boosting commerce.

An initiative aimed at helping shop owners improve their ICT skills in order to better their business practices will be launched in the coming weeks. Other steps taken in the past few months to improve the business scenario included strengthening the Business First initiative, improving access to finance and the public contracts reform.