Canadian trade, investment mission arrives today

A Canadian trade and investment mission, headed by Mr Gar Knutson, Secretary of State (Central and Eastern Europe and Middle East), arrives today on what can be described as the second phase of the country's new drive to expand its commercial relations with Mediterranean countries.

The first phase was the promotional programme held in Malta in March. It included talks and outdoor activities in Valletta. The mission visiting the island this week, part of a wider programme that takes in Cyprus, is aimed at exploring in greater detail new trade and investment opportunities for Canada.

Its members include Serge Charbonneau, who is responsible for the Baltic, Central European and Eastern Mediterranean Countries' Division, Rome embassy officials, and representatives of Canadian firms interested in doing business with Malta.

Accompanying the mission is Mr Milo Vassallo, Malta's consul general in Toronto, who is keenly interested in developing two-way trade between the two countries.

Meetings are planned to be held with the Chamber of Commerce as well as with the Malta External Trade Corporation. They also plan to visit ST Microelectronics.

The state secretary, accompanied by the Canadian charge d'affaires in Rome, Mr Malcolm Mckecknie, will also be calling on the President and the prime minister. Mr Mckecknie was also in Malta last March.

Minister Knutson was assigned the newly-created portfolio of Secretary of State for Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East this year. He was first successfully elected to parliament in 1993.

Some of his proudest accomplishments has been the work he has done within Elgin-Middlesex-London, striving to attract economic investments to the area.

Two of the firms most interested in doing business with Malta and which will be represented in the trade and investment mission are Technomarine and Lord Cultural Resources.

Technomarine, set up over 20 years ago, has established a world-wide reputation for its expertise in the design and installation of a full range of aluminium, steel and concrete composite products for the marine leisure and passenger handling industry.

It specialises in building floating marina systems for four-to 30-metre yachts, floating passenger terminals for ships of up to 1,000 tons, floating harbour protection systems (breakwater and wave attenuators), public marine access systems and pre-engineered gangways and pedestrian bridges.

"Since we know that Malta is thinking of expanding its marinas, we are obviously quite interested in doing business with the island," said Mr John Juliano, Technomarine's sales and marketing manager, Middle East.

The firm has a huge plant in Repentigny in Quebec where the marine structures are built. Mr Juliano said their engineering department studied and custom designed marinas and specialised floating facilities of all kinds of settings.

Up to now, Technomarine has installed more than 20,000 berths, 8,000 linear feet of floating breakwaters and hundreds of gangways and bridges. With its head office in Montreal, it has sales offices and some manufacturing facilities in a number of countries.

Its small craft harbour projects included those of the Old Port of Montreal (St Lawrence River), Port Credit Yacht Club (Lake Ontario), Philadelphia Marine Centre (Delaware River), and Bay Harbour Yacht Club (Bay Harbour, Michigan).

It has also built the marine gangway for the highly popular river boat Bateau-Mouche.

Lord Cultural Resources works in cultural resource planning and management. It has carried out over 900 museum planning assignments to date in 17 countries .

The firm, set up in 1981, has published such definitive texts as 'The Manual of Museum Planning, second edition (The Stationery Office/AltaMira Press, 1999); first edition published by HMSO Books, London 1991), 'The cost of collecting (HMSO Books, London, 1989), 'Planning our museums' (National Museums of Canada, Ottawa) and the 'Manual of Museum Management (The Stationery Office, London, 1998).

Its managing director for its European division, Peter Chowne, has already done some consultancy work for Malta. Mr Chowne, a visiting lecturer in heritage conservation at the department of architecture, Oxford Brooke University, has also down work for Greece, Israel, Turkey, and EU Euromed Heritage 11 project.

Mr Chowne, author of a number of publications, plays an active role in the development of heritage management. He is a founding member of the Advanced International Programme for Heritage Quality and is also active in the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS).

Lord has carried out a great number of most interesting projects. For instance, in 2000 they were contracted to carry out an impact study for English Heritage's second most visited site after Stonehenge, Dover Castle. In the same year, they were engaged by Arriyadh Development in Saudi Arabia to draw up a start-up interpretation package for the historic city of Dir'iyyah, capital of the first Saudi state.

The aim of the project was to provide for organised public access to the site during a proposed multi-year planning and development phase until more permanent programmes can be put in place. The Tate Gallery commissioned Lord to study the quality of experience the gallery was providing to its visitors. The project encompassed interpretation, information services, signing, circulation and visitor services.

The study was part of Tate's forward plan to establish two new galleries, Tate Britain and Tate Modern.

Tate implemented the majority of their 26 recommendations, including a new signage programme, information desks and improved visitor services.