Malta Enterprise is to lead a business delegation to Libya between April 16 and 19 with a specific focus on the ports and maritime services.

The long-awaited trade mission will provide companies operating in this industry with a valuable opportunity to explore the opportunities that the country is offering, post-revolution.

The trade mission will be led by Finance Minister Tonio Fenech and Small Business Minister Jason Azzopardi and is the first since last year’s uprising last year. More than 450 businesss have expressed interest in joining business delegations to Libya and others will be organised.

Malta Enterprise has already visited Libya and, in tandem with the Malta Enterprise commercial office in Tripoli, strived to establish the formal structures so that it could offer local enterprises a good launching pad to do business in Libya, while facilitating the process for Libyan enterprises looking at trade and investment opportunities in Malta.

“Our work over the past months was crucial to ensure that any initiative we undertook can have a successful outcome, given that practically all institutions and business support organisations in Libya underwent radical reforms. In this sense, the partnership agreement Malta Enterprise has signed with the General Board for Ownership and Investment within the Libyan Ministry for Economy paves the way for our initiatives,” executive chairman Alan Camilleri explained.

“Now that the situation has somewhat stabilised, we can look with optimism at organising the first of a series of sectoral delegations to Libya, which on this occasion shall be focusing on the maritime industry. This delegation is an opportunity particularly for those Maltese companies with established links to international co-investors, collaborators and principals. The information we have is that although there is still a degree of uncertainty and it will take some time until opportunities become clearer, it is time for Maltese businesses to start exploring opportunities.”

This first trip is aimed at business operating in the marine engineering, construction and technical services; ship repair, port management and other services; industrial fish processing and farming; yacht marina development and management; and maritime training and value adding services.

Malta Enterprise will help to organise business meetings with their counterparts in Libya, while visits to several ports are planned.

Within the context of the efforts to rebuild Libya, Malta Enterprise and Transport Malta will be holding two separate seminars for Libyan officials involved in regulating these sectors to provide training and assistance to these public bodies based on Malta’s expertise in these fields.

Information is available at www.maltaenterprise.com or from Malta Enterprise’s Internationalisation Unit on 2542 0000 or at internationalisation@maltaenterprise.com.