Government to invite expressions of interest for yacht marinas

The privatisation of the yacht marinas currently administered by the Malta Maritime Authority will follow the same model of recent privatisations – with a call for offers and talks with the bidders, a government spokesman said.

The process will be handled by the Privatisation Unit.

The MMA runs the yacht marinas at Msida/Ta' Xbiex and at Mgarr, Gozo. They have a total of some 1,000 berths out of a total of 1,635 for all of Malta.

The privatisation of the marinas has been on the cards for years, but Transport Minister Austin Gatt said on Wednesday that the process will be completed by the end of the year. A call for offers is expected to be issued in the summer.

Camper & Nicholsons, who run the Grand Harbour Marina (GHM) , last year indicated that GHM should be well placed to tender for the MMA marinas.

“This privatisation is in line with the policy that the government has set for the MMA – for the authority to be a regulator of maritime activities and not the operator,” the government spokesman said.

“As in other economic sectors, the government wants to provide more space for the investment, expertise and entrepreneurship of the private sector with the authorities acting as strong regulators. Essentially, the government has no place using public funds to compete in what is purely a commercial sector that is open to private competition.”

He said the privatisation of the yacht marinas was aimed at better administration, investment in the facilities, an improvement of capacity utilisation and improved synergy between berthing spaces and other yachting related services.

“The privatisation is a milestone on the way to macro economic developments such as the development of a competitive yachting market in Malta, the development of new yacht marinas and the putting in place of the necessary incentives and structures to build a yachting cluster in Malta,” the spokesman said.