A €63,379 grant has been awarded under the COSME programme to the The Ministry for the Economy, Investment and Small Business (MEIB) and the National Statistics Office (NSO), under the Ministry for Finance. 

COSME is an EU 2014-2020 programme running for the Competitiveness of Enterprises and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises.  It shall support SMEs in better access to finance; access to markets; supporting entrepreneurs; and more favourable conditions for business creation and growth.

The grant was awarded for the implementation of a Project Proposal, entitled "Identifying and Establishing Core Variables and Statistics to Support the First Legislation on Family Business in Malta", submitted by both beneficiaries under the call "Statistics for Family Businesses". 

The main objective of the project is to collate statistics on family businesses for the first time in Malta.  This data will aid the legislator, policy maker, key stakeholders and family businesses to garner credible, real, comparable and systematic information and indicators of the family businesses in the Maltese economy.

The target population for this survey shall be approximately 5,000 enterprises, which are performing particular economic activities selected from the Business Register maintained by the NSO. These will be selected according to the NACE nomenclature and also by employment size class. The target group shall be selected taking into consideration the parameters which have been set up in the proposed Family Business Act by the Ministry for the Economy, Investment and Small Business.