Finance Parliamentary Secretary Tonio Fenech has stressed the importance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), saying that the government was conscious of the fact that SMEs made a vital contribution to the economic well-being of Malta and The Malta Institute of financial Services had to continue acting as a catalyst and spur SME activity by providing the right incentives and financing opportunities, he said.
Mr Fenech was giving the concluding address at the institute’s annual seminar, which had as its theme Access to finance for SMEs – Making the best of EU funding opportunities.
Small businesses dominated the Maltese economy in the same way that they did in the rest of the EU, he said. Giving figures, Mr Fenech said that of the 41,050 companies registered in Malta (at end March 2007), some 98 per cent could be classified as SMEs and over 90 per cent as micro-enterprises employing fewer than 10 people.
“Notwithstanding this, SMEs provide around 60 per cent of private sector employment in Malta. Given this scenario, SMEs are truly the backbone of our commercial and social infrastructure and a major engine of growth for the continuous development of our economy,” he said.
The government was aware of the challenges and difficulties SMEs faced in an increasingly competitive and globalised world, said Mr Fenech. This was why they had implemented a comprehensive strategy for the promotion and development of SME activity by introducing a number of initiatives and programmes that provided support for SMEs and promoted enterprise development.
The government, he said, was committed to continue shifting its role from that of a key player in the economy to that of a facilitator for growth generated by the private sector. Much effort had already been made and would continue to be made by ensuring an orderly redirection of public expenditure towards growth-supporting spending.
“We are operating in the best interest of SMEs by re-focusing the public sector’s role in the economy on the regulatory aspect within a pro-business administrative framework, thus facilitating rather than participating directly in productive economic activities,” he said.
Financing SME activities remained a key consideration, but they must also not forget the EU dimension. Many of the initiatives taken at national level reflected EU policy in this area of assisting SMEs, exploiting opportunities of the single market and fulfilling the obligations of the Lisbon agenda.
To fully experience the bene-fits of EU membership, Malta must integrate further, said Mr Fenech. This must not just be done by the government at national level but also by Maltese businesses and citizens at the economic and social level. It was only by being fully integrated that we could benefit from the opportunities and programmes EU membership had to offer.
“It is, therefore, important that Maltese entrepreneurs be more pro-active. They must seek and discern, through the available information and structures (both public and private) the opportunities that EU membership has to offer,” said Mr Fenech.
Having a representative from DG Enterprise and Industry of the EU Commission in Malta to explain first hand the initiatives the EU was taking to assist SMEs, understanding how the government was utilising EU funds and learning from the experiences of various local organisations involved with SMEs, would hopefully encourage more active participation from the business community in learning more about what funding was available and actively pursuing it, he said.