Royal Malta Yacht Club to move to Ta' Xbiex

The Royal Malta Yacht Club yesterday signed a lease agreement with the government to relocate the yachting hub to a site in Ta' Xbiex, putting an end to almost a decade of negotiations.

The club, which was formerly housed at Fort Manoel, would now move to a building formerly used by the Malta Maritime Authority, Investment Minister Austin Gatt said during the opening of the HSBC Premier Valletta Boat Show.

The move would be made once the lease agreement was approved by Parliament, he said.

Dr Gatt said the agreement, which had dragged on for nine years, had been reached after a year of fresh negotiations he initiated.

The new site was used for border control and Customs operations that are no longer carried out at Ta' Xbiex following Malta's accession to Schengen.

Dr Gatt said this year the boat show was held at Dock 1 in Cospicua and gave the public the opportunity to visit a place they rarely ever saw. This allowed the public to appreciate the potential it had for re-development. He explained that the area, besides being Malta's oldest dry dock, also included 68 seafront vaults, which the government planned to regenerate.

The government, he said, did not wish to see the area developed in the same way as the Valletta and Vittoriosa waterfronts had but was seeking something new and hoped to adopt a proposal by the end of the year.

Embellishment would be taken in hand in March at a cost of over €7 million, which would be partly funded by the EU.

Dr Gatt emphasised the importance of the yachting industry to Malta and pointed out that, despite the recession, the registration of yachts under the Maltese register had continued to grow - by three per cent for yachts under 24 metres and by 11 per cent for the larger ones.

HSBC chief executive Alan Richards said the bank was committed to promoting the marine leisure sector in Malta that was an important and growing business for the island and the bank.

The boat show will be open from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. today and between 11 a.m. and 11 p.m. tomorrow and on Sunday.