Maltese SMEs have submitted 620 proposals for funding under the third call of a European Regional Development Fund scheme, Malta Enterprise said today.

"This clearly demonstrates the success which Malta Enterprise has achieved in convincing local entrepreneurs to seize the opportunities provided to beat the economic climate and look forward towards growth. This can only result in more employment, better product and service offerings as well as higher levels of environmental and energy conservation safeguards” ME chairman Alan Camilleri said.

The total value of aid requested is expected to exceed €40 million.

Mr Camilleri said that the main objective of the scheme is to provide financial assistance in the areas of innovation, environment preservation, internationalization, e-business, research & development, setting up a new business, as well as energy conservation and use of alternative energy.

“We are now in the process of performing a first run eligibility check such that proposals which are missing basic information which does not, however, have a bearing on the nature of the proposal will be give a week to submit the relevant information so as not to render them ineligible unnecessarily. This is being done to ensure that proposals are not ditched for bureaucratic reasons which can be surmounted. Our commitment to be close to and understand business and enterprise requires of us a continuous learning process which feeds into the design of our service delivery levels,” announced the Executive Chairman.

Following this process, the evaluation process of all applications will commence and is planned to be completed in June.

The first and second calls for ERDF Grants under the 20 million for nidustry and the €10m for Energy Scheme have already been closed leading to the selection of 392 projects and a total outlay of €25 million. As announced in the Budget 2010 speech by the Minister of Finance, an additional €7m has been added eading to a total of €37million being made available for enterprise.