GRTU calls for setting up of €50m Libya business support fund

GRTU, the Chamber of Small Enterprises, is insisting the government sets up a €50 million fund solely to help Maltese companies with funding to invest in Libya.

According to the GRTU’s weekly newsletter Newstring, director general Vince Farrugia wrote to Finance Minister Tonio Fenech last Friday detailing “an urgent request to assist Maltese companies restarting in Libya”.

The GRTU said it was also time to establish a venture capital bank.

It called for urgent discussions on the available options to the authorities and the private sector on ways to finance a Libya Special Business Support Fund.

The fund could also be floated on the Malta Stock Exchange, the GRTU suggested.

Libya, the GRTU said in its letter, had played an important role in the Maltese economy: “A good number of companies had invested there for years and have seen their life’s work lost in a matter of days. These companies, as a consequence, are not strong enough to resettle and restart with immediate effect. Malta, as a country, cannot afford to have the sectors and the ground which was once so cultivated by the Maltese taken by other foreign companies.”

The GRTU stressed it was crucial to act quickly. There were many opportunities in Libya’s construction and infrastructure industries and in the oil sector.

“Maltese companies need help, urgently,” the GRTU said. “Malta will lose out unless the government is smart and quick enough to recognise what is at stake and set up a Libya Special Business Support Fund to help businesses win contracts and mobilise.

“No Maltese company or consortium will be able to start in Libya unless they are backed by a significant amount of capital. Even medium-sized contracts are currently out of the reach of Maltese companies.”