A five-year agreement to be signed on Thursday by MSC Cruises and Viset Malta will see 150,000 passengers visiting Malta next year, cruise line CEO Pier Francesco Vago said.

“MSC Cruises has always been viewed by Viset as a partner and not as a client,” Viset chairman Anton Micallef said.

MSC Cruises has a modern 11-ship fleet carrying 1.2 million passengers and has been calling at Malta since 2002.

The news comes just days after it was announced that MSC’s competitor, Costa Cruises, had cancelled most of its regular stops in Malta for 2011, reducing port calls to 12 from 56.

However, Sam Mifsud of SMS travel, the local agent of the Italian cruise line group, had said although Costa was cutting back on calls, the group would still be making 53 trips to Valletta in 2011 when considering bookings made through its Spanish subsidiary, Ibero Cruceros.

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