The Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry is proud to announce that it has achieved IS0 9001 certification, after much work and effort by the Malta Chamber permanent staff, who, under the guidance of the Quality Management Committee, pursued the ISO quality certification process from beginning to end.

The Malta Chamber’s firm belief in the importance of quality and quality management was consolidated in the organisation’s acceptance as a member of the European Organisation for Quality last July. The Malta Chamber said it is proud to be associated with the leading promoter of quality, as well as extending its European Network through this membership.

Following the Malta Chamber’s acceptance as a member of the European Organisation for Quality, the Malta Chamber commenced the process of establishing and implementing a Quality Management System (QMS), in accordance with the requirements of ISO 9001:2008. This is designed to provide documented procedures and control mechanisms to assure the quality of the product and/or service.

As part of the QMS, the Malta Chamber also started compiling a Quality Manual which was concluded last year. The Malta Chamber was then subjected to internal and external audits, the latter being conducted by the Malta Standards Authority.

This project was undertaken with a view to render the organisation even more professional and to be well placed to better itself on a continuous basis through the same process.

Malta Chamber President Mrs Helga Ellul encouraged enterprise to actively embrace Quality Management as one of the Innovation Management tools to enhance their operations. “Quality management is important for all enterprises, irrespective of the sector that they are operating in, in particular by those enterprises that would like to invest in Research & Development, and those that intend to internationalise,” she said.

Mrs Ellul explained that the Malta Chamber holds quality management standards in very high regard as it considers them a main pillar of competitiveness and readiness to internationalise. “This point was brought out clearly by Minister Tonio Fenech at our Internationalisation conference last October and again during his budget speech when he singled out our Chamber for its efforts in both areas of franchise and quality,” she said.

“It is, therefore, with great pride that we have achieved ISO 9001 certification this year and are now in a position to lead the business community by example.”