José Herrera visited two private companies this morning, Oiltanking Malta Ltd and Medserv plc, and the Government regulatory arm, the Malta Freeport Corporation.
The Parliamentary Secretary started his visit at Oiltanking Malta, where he was welcomed by the CEO Sonke Stein and the rest of the staff. Mr Stein gave a presentation on how this company has worked hard to become the second largest company in the world when it comes to services of oil storage facilities. “The Malta Freeport's unique geographical location was the main attraction for Oiltanking GmbH of Germany to set up business in Malta in 1992. Over the past 23 years, positive investment climates in Malta, the consistent support of its shareholders, and its dedicated Maltese workforce have converted this strategic locational advantage into the successful business operation Oiltanking Malta is running today." Oiltanking Malta increased its workforce by 6% in the last year.
The Maltese Government starting developing the Malta Freeport in the mid-80s. This had a tremendous effect on our economy, and the potential for even more economic growth is enormous. The Freeport’s privatisation in 2004 paved the way for a continuous development process in infrastructure and business development, a process that was only possible through the work carried out between the Malta Freeport Corporation and its main partners, Freeport Terminals and Oil Tanking Malta Limited. From a facility with just 1,000 container slots, today we have a terminal with 13,000 container slots and an oil storage system which has 24 operating tanks handling over half a million tonnes of different grades of oil.
The Parliamentary Secretary continued his visit at Medserv, a company which offers oil and gas servicing. Despite the various international difficulties which this industry is currently encountering, Medserv was able to register growth, and even invested €5 million in a new 7500 m2 warehouse which is helping the company improve the services it offers; it has also invested €8 million in a solar farm which is the largest in our coutry. During his presentation, Chairman Anthony Diacono said that, “Despite the current challenging environment in the oil and gas industry, Medserv continues to demonstrate strong growth, with the last 18 to 24 months actually being the strongest in the company’s 42-year history. This is thanks to the hard work of our team, our proactive strategy, and Malta’s favourable standing in the industry.”
The Parliamentary Secretary thanked the two companies for their contribution to the economy and the maritime sector of our country and applauded the initiatives which they have planned for the coming years. He mentioned how the Government is striving to reduce bureaucracy in this sector and promised his total support to facilitate any other ideas and projects these companies would like to invest in in order for them to offer more and better services. He listed a number of initiatives the Government is taking in this sector, most importantly the revision of the free zones act and the revision of oil bunkering regulations: “Next year, I want to launch a revamped free zones act where the corporation will take a more regulatory role as we continue to build on the one-stop-shop support and develop further multi-modal transport networks. This will open new opportunities for further growth in the sector. Of particular interest to this visit is a project I have launched to review the current bunkering regulations. Bunkering in Malta is another important maritime service where we handle over 1 million metric tonnes per annum of gas and fuel oils.”
Herrera concluded his visit at the Malta Freeport Corporation, the regulatory arm of the Government at the Freeport. There, too, he met with the corporation’s employees, and a presentation was delivered by CEO Aaron Farrugia. The presentation explained the MFC’s role, the work done during the past year, and presented the work plan for next year. Chairman Robert Sarsero and Michael Callus, two members from the Board of Directors, were also present for this visit.