Author: SME Chamber

GRTU has for too long lobbied, both at
national level and in Brussels, for the creation of special Project Bonds to
finance specific development projects. The money is available and the Maltese
have proven on too many occasions that they are willing to invest in Government
promoted projects. The Valletta special project financing, recently
oversubscribed, proved that the public has the funds and the trusts necessary
to finance special projects.

This is one way forward to create new
jobs and continue to invest in the transformation of our national economy.
Malta needs a greater and faster leap forward in economic development and
transformation though innovation. The new economic contributors to Malta's
successful new economy, all knowledge based sectors, enjoy rates of productivity more than
double the average national productivity rate. The older sectors of the economy
like construction, retail and wholesale, accommodation, public administration
and real estate have productivity rates as low as 50% of the national average
and not higher than 75% if the national average.

"The
new knowledge based sectors in which modern Malta of the last ten years has
invested so successfully enjoyed productivity rates of up to 200% of the
national average productivity rates. The new positive high productivity sectors
include Financial Services, Information Communication, Entertainment and
recreation, including e-gaming and other e-activities. We now need more of the
new and more within the old to make them renewed and upgraded. The financing
needs to be addressed towards the new Malta, new Project Bonds, should provide
the necessary stimulus" emphasised Vincent Farrugia Director General of
GRTU.

"We do not need
funding of unnecessary, unproductive and environmentally intrusive projects,
but funding for projects that give us a new impetus for growth and increased
economic value added. We need to upgrade the old or replace with new quality
investments leading to greater value" reported Vincent Farrugia in
an economic report to GRTU's National Executive Council.

GRTU has officially
requested the honourable Chris Said, Minister for Justice, Dialogue and the
Family, to give answers to the following questions: The amount of
prison inmates that are serving timedue to VAT related offences of any
nature as at end July 2012;

The amount of
time that VAT offenders have spentserving time since the enactment of the
VAT Act; A breakdown of
whether those serving time emanate from the business community or the public in
general; The amount of
time that current inmates serving time due to VAT offences have to serve beyond
end July 2012; The amount of
inmates that are spending time related to non payment of penalty (13.98 daily)

GRTU has been however duly informed that the local prisons
are not within the remit of the Justice Ministry and accordingly these will now
be forwarded to the Prime Minister under whose portfolio this issue actually
falls.

This issue has been a bone of serious
contention between GRTU and the PN in Government since the introduction of VAT.
The two John Dalli VAT Acts have been unnecessarily cruel on entrepreneurs
given that VAT registered entrepreneurs have been forced at law to become tax
collectors and forced keepers of taxation moneys without any compensation
whatsoever and with all the extremely rigorous and time consuming and
excessively bureaucratic procedures involved. Most of the offences and
excessive penalties reflect the draconian articles in the Dalli VAT laws. These
should have been positively reformed years ago. Indeed, GRTU has been promised
this years ago.

Integrated System for Quality
Assessment and Automating Filling of Potholes with a Synthetic Substance for
Reinforcing Patching Materials – The
Commercial Need and or Opportunity – Potholes are a problem plaguing a wide
variety of countries and climates. They represent a consistent and re-occurring
problem impacting EU road networks. Current costs to governments are
excessively high. There was an estimated €550 million directly attributed to
potholes (EU 2010), which still left a significant shortfall, and a growing
backlog of unresolved cases.

Current attempts to resolve these
problems are numerous and varied. Manual labour is the most common form of
repair, involving site assessment, preparation of the hole and application of
either temporary (faster) or longer term patching materials. This is labour
intensive and slow, leading to longer disruptions, higher cost, and creating
heightened safety. Several current systems provide a more automated method,
however costs can prohibit use and there are some major restrictions – many of
them cannot operate anything but perfect weather conditions, and they still
require significant manual input, as well as sometimes producing poor results.

The Proposed
Technological Solution

The project solution is to develop an
integrated system for quality assessment and automated filling of potholes. A
new synthetic substance for reinforcing existing patching materials would also
be developed. HoleInOne follows a holistic approach to deliver a fully
automatic (a self-propelled unit assuming no repair crew and one supervisor
only) pothole patching process and machine by:

Integrating mature technologies to automate site
evaluation, pothole preparation and patch application

Implementing an end-to-end process control and in-line
quality controls with adaptive characteristics

Incorporating an expert system to facilitate the
computer-aided evaluation and decision support process

Together with the development of new,
nano-engineered, emulsified asphalt emulsion that virtually fit any application
and will lend themselves into the new (automated) process, the proposed
HoleInOne solution has the potential to achieve faster and cheaper pothole
repairs under any conditions.

Potential
Impact for the Consortium members

The companies who will decide to
participate could have long term economic benefits after the dissemination of
the idea. We believe that a realistic target is to achieve sales to value of
€10 million per annum, five years following the project's completion.

If
interested contact Abigail Mamo at GRTU.

Against the background of weaker
economic activity across the globe, the July edition of the Quarterly Report on
the Euro Area examines recent trade developments at the global, EU and Member
State level in detail. Overall, world trade activity has recovered reasonably
well following the collapse of global trade in 2009. Spurred by strong demand
in emerging market economies, it now seems to be approaching its long-term
growth trend but will probably expand at lower rates than in the boom years of
the previous decade.

At the euro area level, the crisis does
not seem to have aggravated the downward trend in global export market shares
already observed since before the crisis, but seems to have affected the
geographical and product specialisation of its exports. Looking ahead,
sustained import demand from non-EU emerging markets and a rebound of import
demand in new EU Member States should contribute to support euro area exports
in the coming years. Due to the impact of the financial crises and increased
competitive pressures from emerging market suppliers, the euro area is,
however, facing specific challenges in some export sectors, particularly in
machinery and transport equipment.

At the euro area Member State level,
the report shows that the import content of exports is high and rising,
particularly in smaller Member States, a trend which has important implications
for ongoing current account rebalancing processes.

The strength of export performance in
recent years appears to have been mainly driven by changes in geographical and
product market shares, rather than by countries' initial geographical and
sectoralspecialisation. Export performance appears to be only partly related to
price competitiveness, which reaffirms the need to for policy measures –
including at the euro area level – to improve non-price competitiveness,
including through higher competition in the services sector, export promotion
programmes and the promotion of R&D and skills.

The Cosmetic Products Notification
Portal (CPNP) is the online notification system on cosmetic products placed or
made available on the EU market.

This is of critical importance for
bodies established by EU Member States for the purposes of medical treatment of
cases of poisoning and to national authorities for better market surveillance.
The CPNP is accessible as from last January to Competent Authorities, European
Poison Centres and cosmetic products responsible persons as well as
distributors of cosmetic products.

A guide on the use of this facility can
be accessed on:
http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/sectors/cosmetics/cpnp/index_en.htm

Opportunity to form part of the Trade
and Investment Promotion Delegation to China (Shanghai) and Hong Kong between
the 13 and 21 October 2012. China – China is one of the biggest countries
in the world with an area of about 9.6 million km² and a population of more
than 1.343 billion (as at July 21) which accounts for 23% of the world's
population. It is also the great economic success story of the past 30 years.

Hong Kong

Hong Kong became the Special
Administrative Region (SAR) of the People's Republic of China in July 1997. It
has a total area of 1014 sq km and had a population of circa 7.15million (as at
July 2011).  Hong Kong has a free market economy and is highly dependent
on international trade and finance. With such an open economy, the global
economic slowdown also affected Hong Kong, although increasing integration with
China through trade, tourism and finance helped it to make an initial recovery
more quickly. Hong Kong's Economy expanded by 5% during 2011 and is considered
as the world's most service oriented economy with the services sectors
accounting for more than 90% of the GDP. 

Promising areas of investment, trade
and technology commercialisation with both China and Hong Kong include:
Financial and Professional Services, ICT, Environment & Renewable Energy,
Education & Training, Food & Beverages, Travel& Tourism.

Match making meetings for participants
will be organised.  Closing date for
applications is Friday 24 August 2012. Contact Abigail Mamo at GRTU is
interested

A special
Eurobarometer was published providing some useful insights on Europeans
Attitudes. More than 26 500 European citizens aged 15 and above were
interviewed in all 27 EU MS.

More than 90% of EU citizens find quality and price an
important factor when buying food, and more important than origin (71%) and
brand (47%) – indeed they were deemed "very important" by 65%
(quality) and 54% (price)

Quality labels are important for two-thirds of respondents,
and there is an improvement in the recognition of the different EU quality
logos: 24% of those asked recognise the EU organic logo, less than 2 years
after it was launched.

On food security, three-quarters of EU citizens
expressed concern at the challenge of feeding the world's population, but less
than 60% are concerned about the ability of the EU and Member states to meet
the food needs of their populations.

Most EU citizens regard agriculture as making a
positive contribution to preserve rural areas. This is consistent across most
Member States and socio-demographic groups. There is a broad consensus that
agriculture plays a beneficial role.

Key findings

Food security: Some 56% of respondents
are not preoccupied by the level of food production in their country and 57%
are not preoccupied by this at EU level as a whole. On the other hand, 76% of
respondents are preoccupied by the level of food production in the world.
Following on from those results, 84% of people agree that the EU should help
other countries to increase their food production.

Some 81% agree that the EU should
increase its own food production to depend less on imports, and 77% agree that
EU should produce more to satisfy the needs of its own citizens, as well as the
demand from outside the EU.

Food quality: For 96% of respondents
food quality is a factor when deciding to buy or not to buy products – it comes
even before price, which is cited by 91% of respondents. The origin of the
product is less crucial, but still important to 71% of respondents. By contrast
the brand is not considered important by 50% of respondents, as opposed to the
47% of those who consider it important. Quality labels are important to 67% of
respondents.

Only a minority of EU citizens
recognise logos of EU food quality assurance schemes: 36% of EU citizens are
aware of the non-EU Fairtrade logo, 24% are aware of the EU's Organic farming
logo and only a small minority are aware of logos symbolising the three
elements of the EU's Protected Geographical Status scheme (PDI,PDO, TSG).

Agriculture and the countryside: 81% of
respondents consider that agriculture is beneficial for the environment, 86%
agree that it contributes to the beauty of the countryside and 89% believe that
agriculture helps to protect rural areas.

The full report can be found here:
http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/survey/index_en.htm

On the 11 July 2012 the Commission put
forward a proposal for a directive on collective rights management and
multi-territorial licensing of rights in musical works for online uses. The objective of the proposal is to put
in place a better legal framework for the collective management of rights that
are administered by collecting societies on behalf of rightholders such as
authors, performers, producers etc.

The specific objectives of the proposal
are to:

improve the way all collecting societies are managed by
establishing common governance, transparency and financial management
standards;

set minimum standards for the multi-territorial
licensing by authors' collecting societies of rights in musical works for the
provision of online services; and

to create conditions that can expand the legal offer of
online music

In order that Malta may effectively
contribute to discussions on this proposal at the EU Council it is essential
that the views of all national stakeholders in this area are taken on board.
You are therefore kindly requested to review this Directive and provide GRTU
with feedback.

NB.  The full impact assessment is
available on the EU website at

http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/copyright/management/index_en.htm

The European Commission is to simplify
the Europe-wide system of alerts to food health problems, but has stopped short
of proposing to centralise control of the alerts. Changes to the Rapid Alert System for
Food and Feed (RASFF) were almost inevitable after an outbreak of E. Coli in
May-July 2011 which killed 55 people and made more than 4,000 people sick.

The
outbreak was at its worst in northern Germany in May, but there was also a
significant cluster of cases in June 2011 in south-west France.

The Commission published on Friday (20
July) a review of the food alerts system, taking into account the E. coli
outbreak and the lessons learned.

Germany's health authorities submitted
data to the RASFF that misidentified Spanish cucumbers as the source of the
outbreak. The Commission was later accused of being too slow to correct this
erroneous information. It was only after the disease had spread further that
the source was eventually identified as a specific shipment of seeds for bean
sprouts from Egypt in 2010.

The Commission administers the RASFF,
but it does not independently verify the data submitted by member states during
the early stages of a health scare. The data submitted by national authorities
is distributed through the network to all other member states. The false alert
meant that Spanish vegetable producers suffered heavy losses, as their markets
collapsed, which were estimated at €810 million in the first two weeks. The
farmers were later partially compensated from the EU budget with €227m.

Moving online

Shortly after the E. coli outbreak, the
Commission decided to convert the RASFF system to an all-digital platform. Set
up in 1979, most alerts are currently entered and relayed using email. The new
iRASFF platform will allow national authorities to enter information online,
which should provide more information, faster. Member states will switch over
to the new system gradually, though the precise dates have not yet been set.

The Commission is revising rules on
traceability so that tracing back the origin of contaminated or suspect foods
is faster and more efficient. The Commission is also working with the European
Food Safety Authority to improve controls in the cultivation of fruit and
vegetables to guard against non-animal pathogens. Specific rules on the
production of seeds and sprouts are being developed.

The Commission is to provide specific
training for major trading partners such as Egypt on investigating food-borne
outbreaks and on managing outbreaks.

Some critics had hoped the Commission
would take a more central role in the RASFF. Under existing rules the
Commission can assume special powers such as suspending sales of food and
setting up a crisis unit for an EU-wide response during emergency situations.
But these powers have never been used.

It was an EFSA taskforce that belatedly
identified the source of the contamination as coming from Egypt. But this work
was not undertaken at an EU level until after the outbreak had already peaked.

There will be tighter co-ordination of
RASFF with the EU's Early Warning and Response System, but a Commission
official said that it was best at the early stages of a crisis to leave the
responsibilities for gathering and disseminating data to member states. "We will
strengthen our operating procedure so there are more certainties for the data
entered into the system," he said. "But the responsibility remains with the
national authority, which has to put into the system reliable data."