The Beverage Container Refund Scheme is starting soon and BCRS Malta organised an information session for SME Chamber members.
During this webinar which was addressed by Malta Chamber of SMEs President Mr Paul Abela, members had the opportunity to understand better how the scheme will be functioning and their role.
Members also had the opportunity to ask questions related to the scheme.
Members may request the recording of the information session provided by BCRS Malta by sending an email on .
Malta Chamber of SMEs representatives earlier today met the Shadow Minister for self-employed and SMEs Hon. Robert Cutajar.
Malta Chamber of SMEs Deputy President Philip Fenech, CEO Abigail Agius Mamo and Head of Policy Andrew Aquilina attended this meeting.
The Malta Chamber of SMEs today organised a consultation meeting with Fuel Stations Committee on the Energy Taxation Directive.
The SME Chamber focuses in keeping its members updated on EU directives and providing feedback to the relevant authorities.
The Energy Taxation Directive (2003/96/EC) — commonly known as the ETD — is the European Union’s framework for the taxation of energy products including electricity, motor and most heating fuels.
The reforms announced in July 2021 include:
As the new ETD is a revision of an existing directive, its unanimous acceptance by all members of the EU Council is required. Any dissenters are likely to be called upon to suggest other solutions for reaching emissions reduction targets. Provided unanimity is achieved, the ETD should come into force in January 2023. Once adopted, Member States are expected to implement changes to their domestic legislation.
The Malta Chamber of SMEs and the European Language Resource Coordination (ELRC) organised an information session about a free eTranslation service being offered for SMEs.
The informations session was presented by Dr Donatienne Spiteri, from the ELRC National Anchor Point (Malta) and Mr Mark Vella – DG Translation Language Officer at European Commission Representation in Malta.
eTranslation is provided by the European Commission, is a state-of-the-art online machine translation service. The eTranslation service is free of charge and will help you save time and money to translate your documents and text between any two official EU languages, and more! eTranslation guarantees the confidentiality and security of all your translated data.
During this information session, the speakers spoke about the advantage using this service and explained how SMEs can use it.
Those interested may watch the recording of this information session by clicking on this link.
You may also download the presentation used by Mr Mark Vella during the information session by clicking on this link.
To register for the Free etranslation service:
Step 1: Create an EU Login
Step 2: Click here and Register & Access
Those interested in using this service may also contact ELRC.
Paul Abela has been confirmed as Malta Chamber of SMEs President for the year 2022-2023.
Following the Annual General Meeting held last week, today the first council meeting took place, during which Mr Paul Abela was elected and confirmed as President of the Malta Chamber of SMEs.
Mr Abela thanked the SME Chamber members and the executive council for electing him once again as President of the Malta Chamber of SMEs. He insisted that throughout this year he will continue his work in defending the interests of SMEs.
Mr Abela thanked the organisation’s CEO, Ms Abigail Mamo and the SME Chamber Staff for their hard and dedicated work and stated that the organisation was never as professional and held such a high profile as it did today.
During the first council meeting, Philip Fenech was confirmed as Deputy President – policy and strategy of the SME Chamber and 5 officers were elected as Vice-Presidents, Marcel Mizzi Vice President – finance and administration; Sergio Camilleri Vice President – sectors; Michael Galea Vice President – districts and localities and Noel Gauci Vice President – International Relations and Mr Robert Micallef was elected for the first time as Vice President – Training and Development.
In its efforts to facilitate the VISA application process and the processing of TCN work permits, the Malta Chamber of SMEs is meeting individual entities and stakeholders in order to identify the bottlenecks in place and also facilitate communication.
The SME Chamber, together with representatives, has recently held a meeting with the Foreign Ministry over issues related with delayed appointment dates at the Visa Facilitation Service in India.
The SME Chamber noted that in instances appointments are being given in July, August and September, in some instances, no available slot is given. This situation is being experienced with both Student Visas and Work Visas
During the meeting the SME Chamber noted, that more resources need to be added and additional efforts need to be made to address the bottlenecks in place.
The SME Chamber will keep following this issue closely and alert authorities with issues experienced by members.
In the coming weeks, the SME Chamber, together with the respective representatives will be organising a series of information sessions, to help members sourcing the right TCNs. Interested members are to register their interest by sending an email on or call on 21232881.
The Malta Chamber of SMEs on Thursday 28th April 2022 held its 73rd Annual General Meeting.
In his opening address, President Mr Paul Abela said that while 2021 continued to be significantly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, we are now recovering and getting back to normality. Mr Abela also said that a new serious crises has since also developed with the conflict in Ukraine and the SME Chamber is also closely working with members and the effects on businesses.
Mr Abela highlighted that throughout this year, the SME Chamber continued to assist and be of support to thousand of businesses and ensuring they have a trusted partner to rely on.
During this AGM, Malta Chamber of SMEs CEO Ms Abigail Agius Mamo presented the Chamber’s Annual Report for 2021.
Ms Agius Mamo explained several milestones achieved throughout 2021 and said that the Malta Chamber of SMEs has once a year made it impact on businesses this year and highlighted 30 tangible achievements businesses gained thanks to the work the SME Chamber has done. Amongst these are;
There were among many other achievements for the SME Chamber and its members. Apart from this, the Malta Chamber of SMEs also won two prestigious awards for its support to the business community, one in Malta and one at EU level.
The members of the Malta Chamber of SMEs unanimously approved the organisations’ Annual and Financial reports and commended the SME Chamber President, CEO, Council and the team for the hard work and results achieved.
The Wage Supplement Scheme which has been ongoing since March 2020, will be extended until May 2022 and terminated that same month. The Government announced this during a Press Conference addressed by Miriam Dalli, Minister for the Environment, Energy and Sustainable Development and Malta Enterprise CEO Mr Kurt Farrugia.
Malta Chamber of SMEs President Mr Paul Abela and CEO Ms Abigail Agius Mamo participated during this Press Conference.
Over the last 26 months, this scheme’s total investment is more than 720 million Euros, has safeguarded almost 120,000 jobs and has assisted more than 17,000 companies including self-employed.
The topic of Access to Finance, specifically focusing on the opportunity of Equity Sharing and how to strengthen this alternative in Malta, discussed this morning in a conference as part of an initiative being taken by the Malta Development Bank, with the support of Deloitte
During a panel discussion, SME Chamber CEO Abigail Agius Mamo presented the views of SMEs on the subject. She emphasized that the access to finance ecosystem in Malta, in general, comes with a number of gaps and some of this gap can be filled in by Equity Sharing. Having said this much more awareness and education is needed on the subject as well as a support framework, which includes a number of safeguards so that a higher success rate can be secured for this option.
