EU fund guidance office planned

Businesses who benefit from EU funds will not be left to their own devices as the Government plans to set up an office to guide them during the implementation phase.

Ian Borg, the Parliamentary Secretary for EU funds, this morning said this was an important step to ensure that no EU funds were lost.

"It is difficult for the management authorities that dish out the funds to offer such guidance because they have to adhere to strict rules but we want to set up a satellite office that helps businesses during the implementation phase," he said.

Dr Borg was speaking at a seminar organised by the Malta Business Bureau during which the findings of a study on access to finance were presented.

During the seminar, a study that was recently published by the Malta Business Bureau in collaboration with Bank of Valletta was presented.

This concluded that 30 per cent of local enterprises found it difficult to raise the finance required to further their development and that 72 per cent of SMEs in the start-up phase were currently using ‘traditional’ lending products such as loans and overdrafts when these were not necessarily the best solution for companies that were going through their stage of development.