The New Family Business Act was the theme of a business breakfast organised by the Gozo Business Chamber and Bank of Valletta in collaboration with the Ministry for the Economy, Investment and Small Businesses. The event was held at the Grand Hotel, Mgarr Gozo.

The forum was addressed by Michael Grech, president of the Gozo Business Chamber, Dr Nadine Sant, Legal advisor at the Ministry of Economy, Investment and Small Enterprises, Dr Chris Cardona, Minister for the Economy, Investment and Small Business and Mark Scicluna Bartoli, Head ‒ EU & Institutional Affairs at Bank of Valletta.

In his address, Dr Cardona announced that the preparatory work on this Bill has been concluded and a White Paper is due to be published shortly. Minister Cardona said that family businesses are valuable to the economy and deserve the support of government. Through this legislation government aims to address a problem which many family businesses face since only 30% of such businesses complete a successful transition from the first to the second generation, while less than 10% make it to the generation after that.  

This Act seeks to extend various incentives and benefits to family-owned businesses, however eligibility for these incentives requires that the business has proper structures in place. This Act will make Malta the first EU member state to have a legislation in place specifically focused on family businesses.

Mr Scicluna Bartoli gave an overview of various financial instruments and explained how these can help SMEs and family businesses tap into bank financing. Speaking about Bank of Valletta's offerings, he said that: "Bank of Valletta has been working hard over the past five years to consolidate its position as the bank for SMEs in Malta. Its BOV Start Plus package gives start-ups and micro-enterprises access to financial instruments that are backed by an EU Guarantee, thereby enabling them to benefit from more favourable terms." He also spoke about the BOV4SME financial instrument, designed to assist SMEs in their financing needs and offering them a fixed interest rate of 4% for the first four years.

Mr Grech explained that this is a very important law which should affect in a positive way all businesses especially SMEs when they are being passed on from one generation to the next. We hope that before the law is enacted there will be a continuous dialogue between the government, the business community and its representatives in order to come up with a law which not only provides comfort to those passing on the business to the next generation but which would also be used as an example to be followed by other EU states. This initiative is a first within member states of the EU. 

The Business Breakfast was also addressed by Dr Sant, Legal advisor at the Ministry of Economy, Investment and Small Enterprises.