Identifying appropriate private investors to realise Corporate Village according to plan is the main challenge facing Malta Enterprise, the agency tasked with marketing the €200 million business centre earmarked for Mrieħel, an official said this week.

Investors will be selected to implement the project according to plan in the ongoing request for proposals process and later negotiations.

Proposals for Corporate Village will be received until noon on September 28, more than 12 months after former chief executive Alan Camilleri told The Times Business Malta Enterprise was in the process of finalising the formal request for proposals. The project was originally launched in June 2010.

“In September 2011, the documentation related to the request for proposals was being finalised,” Malta Enterprise told The Times Business this week. “The RFP was eventually issued by Malta Industrial Parks earlier this year, with the deadline for submissions from interested parties being set at noon on September 28. The responses we will receive will give us an indication of the level of interest, the nature of the project and its viability.”

Malta Enterprise said no modifications have been made to the original proposed plans, although the project’s detailed design will be among the selected developers’ responsibilities.

The project brief is still based on the expression of interest document published in 2010, with the request for proposals issued to companies which had participated in the earlier process.

Ten expressions of interest had been received by Malta Enterprise, one of which was, however, a late submission. A mix of companies and consortiums from Malta, Italy, the UK and the US expressed interest in the project.

Malta Enterprise described the overall quality of submissions as “good and satisfactory, with encouraging prospects for eventual negotiations”.

Corporate Village, which was originally expected to be completed by 2015 covering 130,000 square metres, has been plagued by doubts – and at least one extended deadline – ­and Finance Minister Tonio Fenech has reaffirmed the government’s commitment to it.

Earlier this month, he replied to a parliamentary question by Opposition whip Joe Mizzi saying the project’s commencement date would depend on the request for proposals and the subsequent identification of the appropriate developer. In June, Labour leader Joseph Muscat said he hoped the plans had been dropped.

Sources believe the project will go ahead with some changes to the original plans, particularly as the first designs may involve prohibitive costs in the current economic climate.

“Land in Mrieħel is gold right now and there is healthy demand for office space in the area if other business centres are anything to go by,” sources said. “With government already committed to take up 30 per cent of space at Corporate Village through the relocation of Malta Enterprise, the VAT Department and the Department of Inland Revenue, all the project really needs is a developer with clout to market it. If the developer can secure 50 per cent occupancy before works begin, Corporate Village will get off the ground nicely. The timing is unfortunate with people expecting an election to be called some time after the summer.”

But a Finance Ministry official rubbished such suggestions: “We are in the process of preparing the pre-Budget document this week, along with numerous other long-term projects. Governments work long term. Processes related to Corporate Village are ongoing.”