Announcing this, parliamentary secretary Edwin Vassallo told The Malta Independent that this was the culmination of three years’ hard work by his secretariat. The only thing now remaining is the approval by the Rural Affairs and the Environment Minister.

Once this is granted, 14 sites all around Malta will be taken out of the non-development zone and each can become an industrial park.

No less than 80 owners of disturbed land applied to have their land included in this scheme. The ones which have been approved include two large tracts of land just underneath Telgha t’Alla w Ommu, of 24 and 39 tumoli respectively, one of which is agricultural land which has been affected by the dust in the area.

The other areas include the site of a batching plant at Taz-Zwejt, a quarry at Mgarr, a scrap yard at Zabbar, an area at Mellieha used for a public service, another quarry at Mqabba and another batching plant at Santu Kristu near Ghaxaq.

Following the approval of the minister, said Mr Vassallo, this land will be included in the development zone and a contract will be signed with the owners. The owners can still refuse to accept this public-private venture.

If they agree to join the scheme, they will have one year in which to develop the site into an industrial park by building a variety of industrial facilities, complete with all infrastructural services.

This will not be on the model of the tal-Handaq or Mriehel industrial areas, Mr Vassallo said, where building had not been planned, but rather on the Mosta Technopark model where everything is ready for the enterprises which would like to be located there.

The owners then put their units on to the market and lease the units to would-be SMEs. If the sites are not taken up, there is a scheme which caps the lease at Lm6 per square metre. The scheme lasts nine years.

Mr Vassallo said he was optimist that the land being released for industrial sites is enough for the huge demand there is at the present time. “In less than two years,” he said, “we will have a number of industrial parks where the self-employed and the SMEs can get sites where they can work in conditions which safeguard the environment and health and safety.”