Malta’s business friendly environment and Mediterranean climate have been attracting scores of Italians, business and financial news portal Bloomberg reported yesterday.
In an article entitled ‘Italy hedge fund stars, chefs lured by Malta climate’, Marco Bertacche, Francesca Cinelli and Blanche Gatt write that the number of Italian residents in Malta increased by 30 per cent (to 1,539) between 2004, when Malta joined the EU, and 2009. That does not include temporary workers or Italians who haven’t got a resident permit in Malta.
The writers quote an Italian who has moved to Malta, money manager Simone Chelini, as saying: “It’s close to Italy; it’s business friendly, we have a sea view from our office”.
Mr Chelini left his Milan job to seek a hedge fund friendly country and said he opted for Malta instead of Luxembourg or Ireland, for instance. “Luxembourg? Grey, flights are expensive. Ireland? Always rains.”
Mr Chelini and his colleague, Pietropaolo Rinaldi, said the main reasons they chose to move to Malta were lower taxes, less bureaucracy and the Mediterranean climate.
According to Bloomberg they joined a unit of a Swiss wealth management firm in March 2009 and in June, opened a hedge fund from an office at Portomaso Tower in St Julian’s.
The news portal states that Malta is enticing Italians, from fund managers to tile dealers. The country’s annual economic growth rate averaged 2.3 per cent in the last five years, compared with an average contraction of 0.4 per cent in Italy.
“The jobless rate is 6.7 per cent, less than half the level in southern Italian regions such as Sicily, a 90-minute ferry ride away. Italy’s government forecasts the unemployment rate in Europe’s fourth-largest economy will climb to a nine-year high of 8.7 per cent this year.”
Bloomberg spoke to an Italian who plans to move to Malta from the Puglia region, Vito Calianno, 39. He deals in marble and stone tiles, and plans to open an Internet dealership for his company.
It’s easy for Italians to get jobs in Malta; it’s a cheaper way of doing business, he said, adding that start-up costs of €1,500 are about 10 times cheaper than they are in Italy.
Apart from the business advantages, a number of Maltese speak Italian fluently, and since the country joined the eurozone in 2008 it has been attracting investment funds, gaming and import-export companies because of lower taxes, wages and rents, reports Bloomberg.
FinanceMalta, a public-private initiative set up to promote Malta as an international financial centre, says the country offers an attractive cost- and tax-efficient base for financial services’ operators looking for an EU-compliant, yet flexible domicile.
The country offers a single supervisory body, the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA), which ensures full compliance with EU regulations, while at the same time being able to act with speed, flexibility and the minimum of bureaucracy.
FinanceMalta, as well as Malta Enterprise and other government bodies that have been putting a big effort into promoting Malta’s financial services centre, are being proven right.
Mr Chelini was quoted as saying: “Malta is the perfect location in terms of set-up costs and bureaucracy and the local regulator is much quicker”.
Mr Chelini managed Unifortune Asset Management SGR’s Albatross fund with Mr Rinaldi in Milan until January 2009.
Albatross won the award of best-performing long-short Italian hedge fund in 2007 from Italian investment magazine Mondo Hedge.
A number of Italians working in Malta find jobs at restaurants, hotels or casinos. Bloomberg spoke to Gianluca Lorefice, owner and chef at a restaurant in Paceville, who said Malta is much smaller in size than Sicily, but much bigger in opportunity; it is much easier to do business in Malta.
“Compared to Italy, you pay fewer taxes and credit is more easily available. In Italy there is so much bureaucracy, it stifles you.”