The recruitment of all vacant positions within the Smartcity management team should be complete by the first quarter of next year and it is likely that those appointed would be Maltese, Fareed Abdulrahman, acting chief executive officer of Smartcity said this morning.

He told timesofmalta.com in an interview that Claudio Grech’s departure as CEO did not imply a change of direction in any way. “Smartcity is committed to the government, its business partners and all stakeholders.”

Mr Abdulrahman said that the project was going according to plan and there was major interest in Smartcity Malta from all over the world.

Smartcity Malta, he said, was very selective in terms of its choice of clients and was looking to seal a minimum of five-year agreements and to secure continuity of relationships.

The company was confident, he said, there would be tenants occupying the new office space next year.

He said despite the impression that there was little activity on site, most of the work was being off site. Things, he said, would progress at a very fast rate from now on.

The full interview will be published in The Times Business tomorrow.