Budget to continue sustaining competitiveness - Tonio Fenech

This year’s budget will be seeking to consolidate that of 2009 in sustaining Malta’s overall competitiveness and in continuing to provide support for SME internationalisation, Finance Minister Tonio Fenech said this morning.

Addressing a Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry stakeholder conference “Gearing up for internationalisation”, Mr Fenech said that this was being done in the awareness that it was not only individual firms or product sectors that stood to win or lose but the entire country.

“In order to have more internationalised SMEs, Government support remains vital.

“Many SMEs would not probably not consider internationalisation if it were not because of this support,” he said.

Mr Fenech said that despite the advantages of embracing internationalisation and the risks of not doing so, many Maltese SMEs still remained focused on the local market.

“We seem to have failed to fully embrace the realisation that the world is our marketplace. Five years after EU membership, the reality and potential of the single European market has not yet hit home.”

The main reasons for this would include lack of skills and financial resources.

These concerns, Mr Fenech said, would be addressed in the forthcoming budget which would encompass policies to ensure that entrepreneurs and companies had access to the appropriate support required at different stages in their development.

“Furthermore, we are envisaging a budget package that continues to concentrate on education and the upgrading of the existing human resource base of the Maltese economy and in the development of new academic and vocational skills to meet the increasing challenges faced by industry and enterprise in the global marketplace.

“The fundamental aims of the 2010 Budget, jobs, growth and social cohesion, go hand in hand with competitiveness and internationalisation.,” he said.