Companies to be assisted to trade abroad through franchise agreements

Malta Enterprise and the Malta Chamber have teamed up to help local businesses spread their wings abroad through franchise agreements.

ME chairman Alan Camilleri said that a number of franchise operations had existed in Malta for a long time, particularly in food and catering and fashion clothing.

A good number of Maltese companies that hold a franchise licence for Malta had also managed to extend their licence and to set-up franchise retail operations in North Africa, as well as to other European countries.

On the other hand, a few Maltese companies had also reached agreements to be represented abroad. The government wanted to see this number grow.

Mr Camilleri said a consulting firm, the International Franchise Centre, had been engaged to assist and support ME and the Malta Chamber in implementing the development of a local SME franchise industry especially for companies having potential to internationalize and export their brand abroad.

ME and the Malta Chamber will work together to develop further this opportunity and potential for local brand names to operate both locally and abroad using the franchise formula.

Finance Minister Tonio Fenech said one of the purposes of the campaign was to encourage Maltese businesses to incentivise and support businesses to look beyond Malta's shores and explore the opportunities offered by the worldwide market.

The Commonwealth Secretariat, through its Special Advisory Services Division (SASD), will be supporting this project on internal capacity building and through the development of a franchise support programme for Malta.

Mr Fenech remarked that access to foreign markets was much easier thanks to EU and euro zone accession, particularly through the freedom of movement of goods, services, capital and persons and the recent Services Directive.