The Nationalist Party in government has always promoted and sustained the belief that small and medium enterprises are the backbone of our economy. This belief has always been reinforced with legislation aimed at granting our SMEs the best possible conditions to flourish and grow. The intention is to strive in this direction, as this belief is the key to the creation of nation-wide wealth.

Since I became responsible for small businesses, I declared my intention to lend a listening ear to the sector, as I want to be close and on the ground in order to be able to give all the attention needed to our SMEs. This promise in the past weeks has started to materialise, via a series of meetings that we are organising in various Local Councils around Malta and Gozo, for which small business owners are invited to attend. We sent out around 12,000 letters of invitation, for these five meetings, and I am happy to note that the attendence at the first four meetings was positively surprising. Next week we are holidng the last one in Victoria Gozo, and I encourage all Gozitan entrapreneurs to attend.

Small business owners attended with enthusiasm, to forward their messages, complaints or suggestions to the politician. During these meetings I made it ample clear that these shouldn’t be seen as some sort of wish-list for the politician. These meetings are a listening and consultation exercise. Listening however does not imply that anything asked for will be granted automatically. Listening however means that the politician is willing to understand what the sector is going through. Listening means, taking note of all the comments which are brought forward, and where possible take immediate action. In certain cases, this happened, as action was taken to address certain sitiations.

In the past two weeks, Malta Enterprise, Inland Revenue Department, and several other departments which affect closely the operation of SMEs held numerous meetings, on my initiative, with SME operators in order to address and improve situations. In other cases which do not lie directly under my political responsibility, I promised to take the case on, and raise awarness with the particular Ministry or Parliamentary Secretariat, to solve the cases. In other cases, officials from Malta Enterprise and Commerce Division met interested individuals in the last few days after listening to their issues during these Dialogue meetings.

A very interesting fact was that in a few cases, people attending the meetings raised issues, that were so real, that Government is currently holding talks, and taking concrete action to address. In more than one case, we are proud to say that the Government is being proactive to the situation, and is already taking action to address the reality that small business owners are pointing out. This does not only show how important and useful our meetings are turning out to be, but also how sensitive to the situation on the ground the Government is.

Complimentary to the series of meetings and as part of this consultation process, we also launched an email address via which small business owners can send in their remarks and comments. [email protected] is the electronic version of these meetings, which has already recieved numerous messages which are being analysed and replied to according to the case in question. This email address will stay open for all those willing to pass on a message and concerns, regarding our SMEs.

All this is testament to the sacrosanct belief in consultation, this Government has always nurtured. Even in the case of our SMEs consultation is key to their growth as we need to keep on listening in order to keep supplying the right incentives and measure that aid their success.

Dr Azzopardi is parliamentary secretary in the Finance Ministry