Firms looking to venture beyond Malta's shores hail from sectors as diverse as ICT, English-language tuition, professional and financial services, management consultancy, and business education, belying the old-fashioned notion that it was primarily manufacturers who wanted to take their business to other markets.
It is a fact reflected in the participation lists of overseas trade missions over the last few years, when service-based sectors keen to examine new opportunities abroad have been heavily represented.
Between a quarter and a third of the Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry's 1,100 members have expressed interest in internationalising their business, Peter Grima, chairman of the Chamber's Internationalisation Committee, told The Sunday Times.
Mr Grima's committee, originally set up in 2007, is spearheading the Chamber's efforts to sway government agency support towards service-based sectors and small and medium-sized firms which make up two-thirds of the economy. The Chamber is collaborating more closely with Malta Enterprise, and Mr Grima was pleased that the new emphasis the agency is giving to internationalisation has been partly influenced by some of its proposals.
The Chamber's research assistant, Daniela Vassallo, has worked hard to update data on the business community's internationalisation wants and wishes in all sectors from manufacturing to service-based sectors. Interviews have so far been held with over 800 firms and the new information has helped both organisations formulate more focused strategies.
"We are very pleased to support Malta Enterprise as it examines where it should be directing the national effort in attracting foreign direct investment - inwards or outwards - and internationalisation," Mr Grima said. "We consult our members to understand what their goals are, and which sectors, regions or countries they are mostly interested in exploring. We then provide that information to Malta Enterprise so that it is taken into consideration when strategies are designed."
Last week, Malta Enterprise published a varied calendar of events planned for the last quarter of this year and next year. Business delegations are planned for a range of destinations including Libya, Russia, India, Austria, Tunisia and Algeria, the Gulf, South Africa, and South America, and visits to the Expo in China and trade-specific fairs.
The Chamber has pushed for trade relations to be encouraged with Tunisia, Egypt and Austria in particular. Mr Grima explained that while some Chamber members were geared to exploiting potential opportunities with BRIC or emerging economy markets, the majority of Maltese exports and FDI are focused or could exploit untapped potential in European or North African markets. Hence, the Chamber's second 'Doing Business with Tunisia' seminar tomorrow; the first was held six months ago.
The Chamber's internationalisation manager Klaus Pedersen has also been busy sounding out the business community to gauge interest in a possible Maltese-Tunisian business council. Mr Grima said Tunisia offered several opportunities for Maltese agricultural firms but business with this close neighbour was, as yet, negligible.
The Tunisian council would build on an earlier initiative that saw the Chamber establish a Maltese-Egyptian business council with a handful of firms conducting commerce with Egypt. The Egyptian partners are now seeking to set up an Egyptian-Maltese business council.
Algeria is another market worth exploring and Mr Grima said suggestions had been made to the Foreign Office to simplify its long-standing plans by possibly replicating the Chamber's Egyptian council model.
These councils are not intended as competitive fora but a platform for like-minded business people to come together to study the potential of specific markets where joint ventures or retail operations, for example, could be viable.
Initiatives such as these were important because service-based operations were smaller than manufacturers, and these sectors tended to be more fragmented. They also tended to be missed by government or even EU business support schemes.
Mr Grima pointed out that the retail sector was a case in point: most EU grants, proposals or financing initiatives do not cater this sector.
"The Chamber has submitted a project proposal to Malta Enterprise so that we can set up a franchising resource, which could be jointly managed. It would fill a void," he explained.
"There are a number of firms who have retail skills, a good business model, good suppliers of IT and financial expertise, and the ambition to grow. Several even pick up regional franchises. We particularly want to encourage Maltese firms setting up their own franchise model. What is to stop a local firm thinking up a brand and a business model and taking that abroad and franchising it in Greece, Cyprus and Turkey, for example? We could support both scenarios."
With so many initiatives to put under the spotlight, the Chamber has organised a conference to lay out all the internationalisation support structures which are currently available or in the pipeline. It will also be an opportunity for business people to voice their own concerns and proposals.
'Gearing up for internationalisation' will be held at the Chamber's seat at The Exchange Buildings in Valletta on October 23. It will be addressed by Finance Minister Tonio Fenech, the Chamber's president Helga Ellul, Mr Grima, Malta Enterprise chairman Alan Camilleri, the Foreign Office's Permanent Secretary Cecilia Attard Pirotta, and HSBC Bank Malta's chief executive officer Alan Richards.
HSBC has been particularly supportive of Maltese firms' internationalisation with its 'Leading International Business' programme and its association with overseas trade missions.
Mr Grima said the conference had been timed to be pre-Budget to make a point that if Malta is to succeed moving forward, the government needed to review its Budget allocations to support a diversified range of Maltese businesses venturing abroad more generously and more seriously.
"Once a firm gets to a dozen staff, there is no reason why it cannot look at markets abroad," he emphasised. "Very often, firms need support especially in the early years, particularly because of our 'double insularity'. A Maltese venture into overseas markets does not happen gradually in the way it would in Italy and Germany where firms are already part of a larger market. We believe more should be allocated to training, putting template business models in place, initial visits out, or procedures like this franchise project.
There are a number of things that can be done. We are also trying to persuade the government to put more resources into Malta's consular and embassy network and to persuade Maltese firms to make better use of that network."