Parliamentary Secretary Calls for double company participation in EU schemes this year

Malta Independent Wednesday, 8 March 2006, 00:00 Last update: about 13 years ago

Edwin Vassallo, parliamentary secretary for Small Business and the Self-Employed, tabled a target to double the number of Maltese businesses participating in European Union funding and research schemes, from the current 150 to 300 by the year’s end.

Mr Vassallo was opening an information session for organisations looking to participate in EU funding and research opportunities related to information society technologies.

The session deals with the sixth Call of the Information Society Technologies (IST) Programme now open to organisations under the EU’s Sixth Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (FP6).

The current call for applications relates to ISTs – including areas such as eHealth, eInclusion, eWork and eBusiness – and the session is aimed mainly at public officers, the academia and small and medium-sized enterprises.

Addressing participants Mr Vassallo urged: “The honeymoon of EU membership is now over, and we are now faced with the reality of how to make the most of the 400 million-strong EU market and the opportunities it presents. The EU market should no longer be merely a place from where we source our products, but it should also be a destination for our products.

“If we do not capitalise on the opportunities being made available to our enterprises through EU membership, Maltese companies would be left with just the regulations resulting from membership, while the real advantages would go to companies in other EU states.”

Malta, Mr Vassallo said, is “open for business” and to this end the country should focus on what he described as a “quest for excellence” in developing Malta as a “five star business location”. With this vision in mind, Mr Vassallo urged Maltese companies to develop themselves into five star enterprises.

The information session was organised by Projects in Motion and Santucci & Brown International, in collaboration with Fondazzjoni Temi Zammit and the Small Business and Self-Employed Parliamentary Secretariat.

The workshop, held at Malta Enterprise at the San Gwann industrial estate, was free of charge and is a deliverable of the Epist (Enhanced Participation in IST projects) scheme. Epist is a Specific Support Action (SSA) aimed at supporting and facilitating local players’ participation in the areas of eHealth, eInclusion and other areas related to IST participation.