The film facilities at Rinella will undergo a makeover costing at least €15 million that will include investment in indoor facilities.

Addressing a Gvern li Jisma’ session at Castille yesterday evening, Tourism Minister Edward Zammit Lewis said the government will soon be issuing a call for investment of at least €15 million in the Malta Film Studios.

Last year, the government announced that world-renowned Pinewood Studios was one of the five bidders willing to invest in the Rinella project.

This second call for expression of interest in the facilities at Rinella will be launched in the coming weeks, Dr Zammit Lewis said yesterday.

The request for proposals was meant to support a cluster of services that was not limited to the water tanks on site and included indoor facilities.

During his introductory address, Dr Zammit Lewis also referred to the ongoing discussion about the future of Air Malta.

The government will soon be issuing a call for investment of at least €15 million in the Malta Film Studios

The solution, he said, was not going to be easy.

When asked for reassurance that Air Malta would be retaining its connection with Heathrow, Dr Zammit Lewis said the national airline was not ready to give up its routes to Heathrow.

However, discussions were still ongoing, he said, and by the end of June, the government would have a draft business plan about the future of the airline.

Dr Zammit Lewis also spoke of tourism figures that concluded 2015 had been “a strong year”. Last year, Malta saw more than 1.8 million arrivals, outdoing projctions, and this year the tourism sector was superseding those figures.

Although official figures were not yet out, May had seen an additional 14,000 tourists when compared to the same month last year.

The same growth was expected for June, meaning that for the first time, the 200,000 figure for the month of June will have been superseded, he said.