The Maritime hub proposal at Marsa Shipbuilding has been categorised into four areas and the 28 consortia that had submitted bids are being invited to rebid under one of the categories.

The call for proposals will be issued at the end of the month and will be open for 13 weeks, Economy Minister Chris Cardona said this afternoon.

Addressing a press conference, he said that the categories were a maritime hub based on the oil and gas industry and logistics. This could even attract oil rigs from the Mediterranean, the Atlantic and West Africa.

All rigs needed maintenance and if this materialised Malta would be taking advantage of the fact that no such facilities existed in the Mediterranean so far.

The second option was for ship repair, the third for a maritime hub based on super yachts, refitting and repair.

There was the possibility of setting up an academic institute within these three institutes. Moreover, bidder under these three options could make use of all the site.

The fourth proposal was for the servicing of yachts. This, he said, did not mean a marina. For this category, the site would be segmented into five plots and bidders would have to abide by the way the government divided the plots.

Dr Cardona said that during the evaluation phase the government would give more value to proposals that generated more jobs and made the best use of the site.

The ownership of the site remained that of the government but the successful bidder would get a 45-year concession.