With over €28 million in incentives for businesses, Malta Enterprise remains the country’s go-to for entrepreneurial support and assistance. Its CEO, Kurt Farrugia, who took up the role in August last year, is determined in using his position to ensure that strategies are in place to support sustainable business development, innovative start-ups, and dynamic, new niche markets.

With his communications background, Kurt instinctively knows that success in business is down to how effectively entities can communicate for the benefit of stakeholders, and, thus, how easily they can make things happen. His is a role he is excited to have taken on, particularly because he knows 2020 is likely to mark a crossroad in the development of Malta’s business sector, with a plethora of both challenges and opportunities on the path ahead.

“I found a very strong corporation in place when I took over Malta Enterprise (ME). And I know it is going to be a challenge to sustain that, especially because numbers between 2014 and 2018 were absolutely record-breaking from a business perspective,” he explains.

While Kurt knows there is still a lot of interest in the island, he admits we are facing new challenges, including the fact that the country is close to full employment. “One of the main gripes at the moment is that companies need more people to work for them, and they feel that shortfalls in human resources are holding them back,” the CEO explains.

“As niche markets – like video game production and medical cannabis – continue to develop, we will need more and more people with particular skills so that is also something to be aware of.

"This is where training and education become crucial, and we must encourage students to consider studying for jobs in these sectors. There are certainly going to be some exciting prospects in these fields, with over 900 new employees needed in the medical cannabis market in the next three years alone.”

ME, Kurt believes, can sit at the centre of making this evolution come about. In operation under various guises since the 1950s, the corporation acts as an advisor to the Government on economic policy due to its close and constant interaction with the main economic players in the country.

Since its inception, it has always sought to spark economic development by encouraging new businesses, creating jobs, and contributing to improvements in various key goals such as the GDP, exports, skills development, and community development.

“ME has played an essential part in opening up the economy to international trade and foreign investments over time, and we are certainly going to keep that focus up in the years to come,” Kurt continues. “On top of that, I am also working very closely with the Ministry for Education to ensure we are up-skilling our workforce, as that is one of the key factors that will continue to interest potential foreign investors.”

As to the industries he and his team will be focusing on growing in the years to come, the CEO says he is keen to build an array of successful sectors. “We are choosing ones we believe we can excel in,” he continues.

“Sectors that are niche in nature but where we can become world leaders. Examples include our focus on the high-growth life sciences, green projects, aviation, research, advanced manufacturing and distributed ledger technologies, AI, digital games and the testing of products and services that will be enabled by 5G.”

Beyond that, Kurt says he is driven by ME’s – and the wider business world’s – need to keep reinventing itself. “In aviation, we have long been a reliable maintenance and repair hub, and now we are positioning ourselves as the ideal location for the testing of drone technologies.

"In pharma, we started by attracting generic drug manufacturers, and now we are on the cutting-edge of medical cannabis production. In IT, we are experiencing strong interest from blockchain companies with very innovative business ideas, while independent games studios are choosing Malta and AI companies are looking to launch their projects from our island.”

As his own personal mission, Kurt says he is also eager to see the start-up sector strengthen and, under his leadership, ME is organising a number of events that bring together start-ups, young entrepreneurs and mentors.

“We recently hosted the first edition of the Startup Express, which was designed especially to assist those present to enhance their competence for pitching and showcasing projects to business angels and investors. Participants received input from Christoph Sollich (aka The Pitch Doctor), crowdfunding pioneers Seedrs, industry experts and successfully funded start-ups. It was very well received, and is just the start of what we have planned in this area,” he says.

After all, as CEO of ME he knows the value that start-ups can add to the Maltese economy. “While continuing to build on the strategy that my predecessors have set, I will be dedicating special attention to this sphere. In fact, an internal working group on start-ups has already been formed.

“From 2015 to-date, ME assisted 89 beneficiaries under the B.Start scheme – the flagship scheme for start-ups on the island. We disbursed €2.2 million worth of assistance in favour of these beneficiaries, and are now more committed than ever to creating a business eco-system that is more conducive towards start-ups.

“For us, it is already encouraging to note that, over the years, we have managed to attract a number of high-quality international start-ups,” he continues. “Now we will be working to ensure that we can successfully develop home-grown start-ups too, while also enticing more expats to grow their businesses from Malta in the coming years. We are ambitious in this field and will work to have a global unicorn, which originates in Malta.”

In addition, Kurt says that he sees numerous opportunities for this year, as well as two major challenges. “We have to identify the bottlenecks that might put people off from doing business on the island, and solve them,” he says.

“With that in mind, we are launching a business portal that will be a one-stop shop for anyone thinking of doing business here – covering everything from water and electricity services to VAT registration. That, combined with our long-term plan for improving skills and human resources, will ensure we remain attractive to foreign investment, while supporting our own local entrepreneurs too.”

Finally, Kurt says he will be taking stock of the economic situation in Malta, and come up with clear strategies to ensure businesses have the support they need going forward.

“The economic situation is very good at the moment, with record growth, but it is time to start thinking about how to sustain that growth, while also guaranteeing sustainability in terms of our quality of life and the environment. I am very enthused by our ideas on how to achieve exactly that, and to implement it as part of our strategy for the months and years to come,” he concludes.

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