The furniture manufacturing sector has adapted to new challenges and is doing very well despite fears it would be destroyed when levies on imports were removed, according to the Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business and the Self Employed, Edwin Vassallo.

"We are going to continue to see a rise in the manufacture of furniture, and this can be seen from the wages and salaries, sales, employees and investment figures," he said at a press conference after visiting sites at the Targa Gap industrial estate, in Mosta.

Mr Vassallo said that in order to help the manufacturing sector market its products, the secretariat has launched a directory with details of businesses that can be found in the two industrial zones in Mosta, that of Targa Gap and that of Tas-Sriedak.

The directory will be distributed in households. Information from it can also be found online at www.smemalta.com.

Martin Bowerman, a representative of the Small Enterprise Directorate at Malta Enterprise, said that statistics for the period 1998-2005 show that not only did the sector maintain its market share but other aspects of the sector also remained strong.

There had been substantial investment in the sector between 2002 and 2005, increasing from Lm1.077 million in 2001 to Lm4.134 million last year.

The contribution of the furniture sector to investment in the manufacturing sector as a whole stood at 9.2 per cent, he said.