News about the talks with Air Malta was broken by Yoofi Grant, CEO of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre, on the fringes of a business forum in Accra.

He noted that 28 businesses forming part of an Enterprise Malta/Trade Malta delegation were in Ghana looking for opportunities.

“We look at Malta as a steppingstone into the EU market while Malta looks at Ghana as a steppingstone into the African Continental Free Trade Area and the Economic Community of West African States market. We complement each other in many ways,” Mr Grant told news portal GhanaWeb.

Malta, he noted, was probably the best economy in the EU today and Ghana was the best economy in Africa and, probably, the fastest growing economy in the world. Ghana was also opportunity rich, he added.

On the planned Air Malta service, Mr Grant pointed out that it had still to be established whether it would fall within the so-called fifth freedom rights (which allow an airline to carry revenue traffic between foreign countries as part of services connecting the airline's own country), or whether it would consist of a flight going directly to Accra and then on to the sub-region or whether it would use Accra as a transit point.

GhanaWeb quoted the Minister for the Economy, Investment and Small Businesses, Silvio Schembri, saying that Ghana should consider Malta as its home in Europe.

Lino Mintoff, Head of Membership Development and Internationalisation at the Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry, said the idea behind the Maltese trade mission to Ghana was trying to lay the basis of a relationship and strengthen trust between the two sides. “Once we have that trust we can find the suitable projects on which we can work together,” he told GhanaWeb.

Both sides had to work together to identify those sectors that had a potential to flourish and then bring them to fruition, he added.

Mr Mintoff said Maltese entrepreneurs were well-versed in IT, the manufacture of electronic parts, food production and processing, fintech, Blockchain and project management, among other areas.

“We are very much open for business and that’s why we are here. We want to build a long-term relationship with the Ghanaian people and Ghanaian companies,” Mr Mintoff said.