Production of 200 million euro coins starts on Friday

Malta's euro coins, which will become the island's currency in January, will start being minted on Friday at the Monnaie de Paris, the French mint.

The process of minting 200 million pieces will get underway after a traditional ceremony known as "the breaking of the coin" which takes place every time a new coin is produced. Parliamentary Secretary Tonio Fenech will have to bite the coin to check whether it is "strong enough" to go into circulation and ensure it is not breakable.

Technical preparations for the minting have been completed. About a million test coins have already been produced and consultations with the Central Bank of Malta on the correction of certain aspects of the minting process concluded.

According to the contract with the Monnaie de Paris, the Central Bank will receive 196 million coins in eight denominations - 1c, 2c, 5c, 10c, 20c and 50c and €1 and €2. The value of these coins will be around €56 million, equivalent to around Lm24 million.

The Malta euro coins will have three different national sides: Malta's coat of arms, the eight-pointed Maltese cross and an image of the altar at the prehistoric temple of Mnajdra. Following suggestions by the EU Commission, the final designs had to be slightly retouched by artist Noel Galea Bason to make them conform with established guidelines.

National Euro Changeover Committee chief executive Alan Camilleri told The Times that the first starter packs with the new coins will be available to the public in the second week of December. However, they will only have a monetary value as from January, 1.

The Monnaie de Paris was the selected bidder in a Central Bank international call for tenders last year. As Malta has no national mint, the process must take place abroad.

The Monnaie, now situated within a new complex in Bordeaux after decades in one of the most elegant districts of Paris, is one of the oldest and most renowned mints in Europe. It has been minting French coins since 1879 and is responsible for the French euro coins.