Finance Minister Edward Scicluna today described the implementation of two budget measures, which he believes will remove certain obstacles faced by SMEs when applying for public contracts.

Minister Scicluna addressed a press conference at the Department of Contracts in Floriana. The first measure will reduce the performance guarantee rate for SMEs, and the second will introduce the Single Bond concept for public contracts, he said.

The Minister said that the aim of these two measures is to help small businesses, and help them be more competitive when applying for government contracts.

The reduction of the performance guarantee rate will apply for contracts of up to €500,000, and will see winning bidders only need to guarantee 4% of the total contract value, rather than the current 10%, he said.

The performance guarantee, the minister said, serves for government to ensure that the contractors carry out their work well.

The second measure, regarding the single bond concept, would mean that if a company is granted more than one contract with a particular department, that company would no longer need to guarantee 10% on each contract individually, but would rather need to place a guarantee on the total of the accumulated contracts with that particular ministry or department. He said that depending on the total sum, the performance guarantee could also be reduced to as low as 4%.

"The aim is to help small businesses grow, which in turn will results in the hiring of more employees by these businesses, thus increasing their contribution to the Maltese economy".

He described Malta's economic activity as "strong".

 €400 million in public procurement comes though the contracts department, he said, adding that this does not include tenders through ministries and other departments.

"The Department has also reduced the amount of time a particular procurement procedure takes, from 250 days down to 115 days, on average".