Multinational company ProMinent, which manufactures water pumps and water treatment plants, will be expanding its operations in Malta with an investment of €5 million over the next three years.
Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi's third and final day of his official visit to Germany continued yesterday in Stuttgart, the capital city of the state of Baden-Wurttemberg, and the city of Heidelberg.
ProMinent first set up shop in Malta in 1988 and has grown to an operation which employs 120 workers at a plant in Bulebel, the group's second largest factory among the 44 it has around the world.
The company employs over 2,000 workers worldwide, generating a yearly turnover of €350 million, 90 per cent of which comes from its production plants outside Germany.
Engineer Rainer Dulger, the owner's son and the company's technical manager, said the company's base in Malta is its most important branch.
The company plans to transfer its assembly line of electronic state-of-the-art parts from Germany to Malta.
The financial crisis affected the company but by the end of the three-year investment in Malta, management is forecasting that the recession would be over and the markets would have cleared up again.
Dr Gonzi said that after the visit to Lufthansa Technik on Wednesday, ProMinent was another success story of German investment in Malta.
This was a vote of confidence in the country and its economy and also in its people. It was even more significant that the investment was being made at difficult economic times, Dr Gonzi noted.
Earlier yesterday, he met government officials of the state of Baden-Wurttemberg led by President Minister Gunther Oettinger. Dr Gonzi said later the state would be sending a delegation to Malta to discuss how the Baden-Wurttemberg and Malta could cooperate in various areas, including research and development, student exchanges and solar-and wind-generated energy.
In Heidelberg, with its breathtaking views, Dr Gonzi met the Rector of the Heidelberg University, renowned for its research facilities and where a number of Maltese students go to further their studies.