Plans to improve rural areas in the north

The countryside in 13 localities will be revamped with the help of a €90,000 EU grant that will go towards the creation of a local development strategy.

The funds were allocated to the Majjistral Action Group, the public-private partnership set up to draw up a strategy for work in rural localities of the northern region of Malta.

The project will bring together the councils from rural areas and representatives from the private sector and falls under the EU's Leader Programme (a French acronym for Links between Actions for the Development of the Rural Economy).

"In Malta this is going to be the first experience where a public-private partnership will design and implement, together with the participation of the whole territory concerned, actions for the improvement of the quality of life of the residents in rural areas," group chairman Ian Castaldi Paris said.

He said the action group would soon start a wide consultation process focused on the needs of the localities and of the specific economic sectors that characterised the Maltese rural economy: agriculture, tourism, small and medium enterprises and NGOs.

Following this process, the local development strategy will indicate the type of actions to be implemented in the rural territory as well as the time frames for implementation. The territory covered by the group includes Lija, Attard, Gharghur, Naxxar, St Paul's Bay, Mellieha, Mgarr, Iklin, Rabat, Dingli, Siggiewi, Mdina and Mtarfa.

NGOs, representatives from the tourism sector, agricultural cooperatives and associations and representatives of the SMEs that are located in this territory also have an active role.