F.O.I. Director-General Wilfred Kenely and administration manager John B. Scicluna welcomed Gunnar Klinga, Minister Commercial Affairs, Permanent Representation of Sweden to the European Union, to the FOI offices on October 3.

Mr Klinga said his job was to help Swedish industry identify and obtain EU funding. In fact, his office had drawn up a handbook for Swedish firms on how to find opportunities and access EU funds.

The purpose of his visit to Malta was to learn about the growth areas in the Maltese economy, see whether any of these could benefit from EU funding and encourage Swedish firms to take an interest in them.

The process would be mutually beneficial because the Swedish firms would be encouraged to team up with their Maltese counterparts to participate in the various programmes and projects.

The FOI gave an overview of the Maltese economy and highlighted the main growth areas. The meeting concluded that the areas of greatest potential for Swedish firms to investigate were the environment, energy generation and transmission, energy saving, and, with Malta still being 100 per cent dependent on the burning of fossil fuels, alternative and renewable energies.