Parliamentary Secretary Jose Herrera convened the initial group of members that will be an integral part of the Steering Committee representing the Government authorities and department. The members represent Transport Malta, the Fisheries & Aquaculture Department, Malta Freeport Corporation, Malta Enterprise and Regulator for Energy and Water Services. During the introductory meeting Dr Herrera explained the objectives of the Integrated Maritime Policy and its implementation strategy. The Steering Committee which will be an integral part of Malta Marittima, a private public partnership, will bring Government closer to industry and provide a coordinated and open dialogue in the maritime areas.

This first step is being conducted in parallel with the set up of a small maritime affairs policy department which will have the horizontal policy integrators covering areas related to research and education, security and surveillance, environment and spatial planning and governance.

Dr Herrera informed the members that he will be pursuing further progress with industry stakeholders for an inclusive organisation that will endeavour to increase the added value in the maritime area. Dr Herrera believes that through active participation industry can have better opportunities for growth. The move towards “regrouping” maritime operators and capacities is widely underway in Europe and several maritime clusters have been established in various European countries to take advantage of the strategic importance of the maritime world where a single representation of the different sub-sectors would provide appropriate responses to relative demand.

The participation of Government is there to act as a catalyst and challenger; to encourage or even push companies to higher levels of aspirations and move to higher levels of competitive performance; to take those decisions that would ameliorate the business environment through effective regulations and reduced bureaucracy. The organisation, Dr Herrera said, will not be there to replace or duplicate the work currently being done by the various department and authorities.