Category: Archive – 2013

In less than a month, May 2nd, we might just start seeing the
new series of ‘Europa' €5 banknotes as this is the official date launching its
circulation. The €10 will start circulating next January. This is an important
event for businesses as they and their employees must become aware, by May 2nd,
that they should start accepting this new banknote.

During the meeting GRTU Members were updated with the
developments and given information on the new Euros and the way they will be
circulated, informed about how they can prepare and what support can be
provided, shown what the new banknotes will look like and the enhanced security
features and given a brief training on how to recognize counterfeits. 

The new euro banknotes series incorporates enhanced security
features drawing on advances in banknote security and technology. This series
was called "Europa" because it shows a portrait of the Greek mythological
figure Europa. This portrait was chosen because it has a clear association with
the continent of Europe and also adds a human touch to the banknotes.

Another meeting for businesses will be held as follows:

Date: Tuesday 23rd April 2013

Time: 14:00 – 15.30

Venue: GRTU Republic Str, Valletta

Registration is required on 21232881 or

The introduction of this new series is part of the on-going
development of euro banknotes to make them even more secure. The European
Central Bank and the national central banks make every effort to safeguard the
integrity of the euro banknotes by regularly upgrading and improving their
security features.

The Europa series has the same "ages and styles" design and
dominant colours as the first series. The new banknotes are to be introduced
gradually over several years, in ascending order and starting with the new €5
banknote as of 2 May 2013. The denominations remain unchanged: €5, €10, €20,
€50, €100, €200 and €500.

The new €5 banknote includes some new and enhanced security
features. The watermark and hologram both display the portrait of Europa. The
eye-catching "emerald number" changes colour from emerald green to deep blue
and displays an effect of the light that moves up and down. Short raised lines
on the left and right edges of the banknote make it easier to identify the
banknote, especially for visually impaired people. They are easy to check using
the "FEEL, LOOK, TILT" method.

The first series will initially circulate alongside the new
banknotes, but gradually will be withdrawn from circulation. The euro banknotes
of the first series will remain legal tender.

Further information is available from the website
www.newfaceoftheeuro.eu. This website includes the "Euro Cash Academy", a
learning module which takes a playful approach to the new €5 and other euro
banknotes.

GRTU has this week welcomed a
Tunisian delegation which gave GRTU a courtesy call. During the meeting it was
recognised that both Malta and Tunisia have developed strongly and they are
very close countries and there is no reason as to why Malta and Tunisia's
cooperation is stronger.

There is a lot of room and opportunity for
cooperation. GRTU emphasised that it is a pity that Maltese importers import
Tunisian products from countries that are far instead of directly from Tunisia.
The companies that formed part of the
delegation came from the following sectors:

Tunisia now finds itself as an
export-oriented country in the process of liberalizing and privatizing an
economy. Tunisia has a diverse economy, ranging from agriculture, mining,
manufacturing, and petroleum products, to tourism. In 2008 it had a GDP of US
$41 billion. The agricultural sector stands for 11.6% of the GDP, industry
25.7%, and services 62.8%. The industrial sector is mainly made up of clothing
and footwear manufacturing, production of car parts, and electric machinery.
Although Tunisia managed an average 5% growth over the last decade it continues
to suffer from a high unemployment especially among youth.

Tunisia was in 2009 ranked the most
competitive economy in Africa and the 40th in the world by the World Economic
Forum. Tunisia has managed to attract many international companies such as
Airbus and Hewlett-Packard. Tourism accounted for 7% of GDP and 370,000 jobs in
2009.

The European Union remains Tunisia's
first trading partner, currently accounting for 72.5% of Tunisian imports and
75% of Tunisian exports. Tunisia is one of the European Union's most
established trading partners in the Mediterranean region and ranks as the EU's 30th
largest trading partner. Tunisia was the first Mediterranean country to sign an
Association Agreement with the European Union, in July 1995, although even
before the date of entry came into force, Tunisia started dismantling tariffs
on bilateral EU trade. Tunisia finalised the tariffs dismantling for industrial
products in 2008 and therefore was the first Mediterranean country to enter in
a free trade area with EU.

Tunis Sports City is an entire sports
city currently being constructed in Tunis, Tunisia. The Tunis Financial harbour
will deliver North Africa's first offshore financial centre at Tunis Bay in a
project with an end development value of US$ 3 billion. The Tunis Telecom City
is a US$ 3 billion project to create an IT hub in Tunis.

More information if interested in
investing in Tunisia can be found on:
http://www.state.gov/e/eb/rls/othr/ics/2012/191253.htm  

GRTU in collaboration with other
organisations is planning a business delegation to Cuba. We would like to know
if Maltese businesses would be interested to explore business opportunities in
Cuba and potentially participate in this delegation? Send an email on if
interested.

General
Information

Capital:
La Habana (Havana)

Official
language: Spanish

Surface:
110,992 km2 archipelago with more than 1600 Islands, islets and cays.

Population
: 11 millions 163 thousands 934 persons. 50.09% women.

102
inhabitants by km². 75 % live in urban zones

Unemployment
rate: 1.6%

More
than 2,500 cultural institutions.

Social
improvements

Cuba has focused on improving its
social environment by developing projects oriented to protect minorities and to
promote the respect to diversity: racial, ethnic, religious and gender.

Tourism

Increase
of 20% in the last five years

Number
of travellers increased by 15% in years 2010 and 2011

Natural
resources and advantages for tourism

Considerable
increase of hotel capacities

The
Countries Main Exports include

Nickel

Medical
and Biotechnological products such as antibiotics, vaccines, monoclonal
antibodies, veterinary use medicaments, equipments for neurological and
rehabilitation use

Fuels

Sea
products

Sugar
and by products

Cigars

Software
development, informatics integrated solutions, automation services and
technical assistance.

The
Countries Main Imports include

Oils
and Lubricants

Machinery

Equipments

Parts
and Components

Food

Metal
and Manufactures

Chemicals

Why should
you invest in Cuba?

Highly
qualified labour force

Indicators
of population health

Climate
of security offered to the foreign staff

Political
and social stability

Adequate
infrastructure, highlighting more than 95% of electrification of its territory

Natural
resources

Industrial
culture

Great
development and Government promotion of research and development (R & D)
activity, technological innovation and its applications

Agile
and reliable national system of intellectual property administration

Geographical
location in the centre of an expanding market and important trade routes

Participation
of Cuba in regional integration mechanisms

Incentives
to Foreign Investors  in Cuba

The State guarantees foreign
investors free transference abroad, in freely convertible currency, free from
taxes or any fee related to net profits or dividends obtained as a result of
the investment. Income taxes are levied at a rate of thirty percent (30%) of
net taxable income. In cases considered in the nation's interest, the Executive
Committee of the Council of Ministers can exempt all or part of the tax on net
income that is reinvested in the country. It's possible to apply other
incentives according to the special characteristics of each project.

"The European Commission is confident
that Croatia will be ready for membership on 1 July 2013". These are the words that we read in
the last monitoring report presented last 26 March in Brussels. "It is good news – said the European
Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy , Štefan
Füle  – The results will directly benefit
the citizens."

The report, consists of 15 pages, it
specifically states that Croatia "has shown the will and ability to fulfil
all outstanding commitments in good time before accession".

But Croatia's journey to the EU has
sometimes been turbulent and it took 10 years of negotiations before they
managed to arrive to this result.

Now, however, Croatia has
successfully completed all ten so-called "priority actions" or
reforms considered essential by Europe like:

Shipyards:
As requested, Croatia has privatised the Brodosplit shipyard.

Courts:
The backlog of cases is being reduced, court presidents have been empowered,
and transparency has been increased.

Enforcement
of court rulings: The system has been adjusted and the clearance rate has
improved.

Conflicts
of interest: A Conflict of Interest Commission was established on 25 January
and has since started procedures against 26 officials (including one against
the agriculture minister, Tihomir Jakovina).

Freedom
of information: A new law on access to information was adopted in February, and
the post of commissioner responsible for access to information has been
created.

Migration:
Parliament adopted a migration strategy for 2013-15 in February that also addressed
the particular concern of how vulnerable migrants are integrated.

Border
posts: Two border crossing points will be built by the date of accession, and a
third is about to be completed.

Border
police: Croatia recruited 467 border police in 2012, as planned, and will take
on 100 more this year.

Police
law: The Commission wanted 36 by-laws adopted. These were adopted, and have
been in force since 1 January.

Translation:
Croatia has "considerably increased the pace of translating and revising" the
corpus of EU law, the acquis communautaire. By mid-March, 118,000 pages had
been translated and revised, suggesting that the task will be completed "before
accession".

This does not mean that everything is
perfect. Decreasing the load of judicial proceedings pending for example, will
take years.

Croatia must also "intensify
efforts" on the prevention of corruption, immediately putting in place
measures to identify conflicts of interest.

For Croatia to join the European
Union however is a unique opportunity, at only 22 years of independence and a
little more than ten years after the dissolution of Yugoslavia.

Its excellent geographical location
and historical ties with other countries in Eastern Europe and the Middle East
allow investors access to a market of 500 million people.

In addition, Croatia has had a steady
economic growth over the past four years and a low rate of inflation: this
guarantees investors a stimulating and safe environment to do business.

One should not forget that the labor
costs in Croatia is four times lower than the European average, lower than half
of the EU countries such as Hungary and Poland.

Meanwhile, waiting for July 1, Zagreb
looks at the last five Member States that need to complete the ratification
process: Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium and Slovenia.

The European Commission will probably
put forward by the end of the year proposals for 2030 targets for the reduction
of CO2 emissions  and increasing the use
of renewable energy, according to Connie Hedegaard and Günther Oettinger, the
European commissioners for climate and energy respectively.

There has been uncertainty over
whether the current college of commissioners would suggest 2030 targets or leave
it to their successors. An orientation debate on the subject indicated that
they might be leaning towards setting only an emissions reduction target,
leaving renewables and energy efficiency to the next Commission.

The EU's existing targets – set in a 2008
package – are a 20% reduction in emissions, a 20% increase in renewable energy
and a 20% increase in energy efficiency by 2020. Investors have complained that
the existing 20-20-20 targets do not cover a sufficiently long timescale to
provide certainty for investment.

Hedegaard has been determined to set
new targets for 2030 quickly, not only to give investors in low-carbon
technologies more long-term certainty, but also to raise the deflated price of
carbon in the EU's emissions trading system (ETS). But she has faced stiff
resistance, both within the Commission and from some member states, notably
Poland, which says new targets should be set only once new international
emissions reductions are made at UN level in 2015.

The Commission has launched a stakeholder
consultation on the issue, which will be open until July. Separately, it also
released a communication on international UN climate talks last week. The
statement concedes that not all issues are likely to be resolved by the
deadline of 2015 – the date set by international leaders in 2011 by which a new
binding climate agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol should be agreed.

The communication said the principle
of ‘common but differentiated responsibility' – how treatment of developing
countries should differ from that of developed nations – could remain
unresolved until the main structure of a deal is agreed.

The Faculty for the Built Environment
is currently undertaking a research initiative in relation to the use of
treated sewage effluent.  It would be very much appreciated if you could
contribute 15 minutes of your time to access and complete the following
questionnaire which is being used as the main research tool https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/3LX8WMZ . Your contribution is very much
appreciated and will contribute towards the research initiatives.

The European Parliament will slim
down from 766 MEPs this summer to 751 after the 2014 elections, but how to
decide which countries should give up a seat? MEPs decided to opt for the
fairest and most equitable solution when they adopted a proposal on it.

The EP currently boasts 754 MEPs but
this will be increased to 766 once Croatia joins in July. After next year's
elections, this number will have be reduced to 751. Under the proposal adopted
by MEPs on 13 March, Germany will lose three seats and 12 countries will each
lose one seat: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Greece,
Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal and Romania. EP elections should
take place in May 2014, as requested by a resolution adopted by Parliament on
22 November 2012.

Why the
reduction?

When the Lisbon treaty was being
negotiated, it was decided to put a cap on the total number of MEPs to prevent
the European Parliament growing indefinitely every time a new member state
joins the EU. This is why the treaty sets a number of restrictions:

The
maximum number of MEPs is 750 plus the president

The
maximum number of MEPs per country is 96

The
minimum number of MEPs per country is 6

The division of seats should be
according to degressive proportionality, meaning the more citizens a member
sate has, the more seats it will get, but also the more citizens each MEP will
represent. So MEPs from smaller countries represent fewer people than their
colleagues from larger states.

The allocation of seats is also being
adjusted to take into account changes in the population of member states. While
some got bigger, others got smaller.

Procedure

Parliament can submit a proposal on
its composition to the European Council, which must then decide by unanimous
vote. EP can then approve or reject the decision by the Council, but it cannot
change the content of the proposal.

What about
the Commission president?

In response to a request by MEPs, the
European Commission announced on 12 March that it recommends political parties
to nominate a candidate for the next Commission president in the next EP
elections.

Europe Direct Firenze has announced
the International Photo Competition EAT
IN EUROPE 2013. This year, the main themes are "food" and "nutrition".

The main purpose of the competition
is to promote an active reflection on the importance and the value of food in
European societies, which are apparently highly evolved, but often have to face
up to serious problems, such as general food wasting, undernourishment and
malnutrition.

Special attention will be paid not
only to the photos, but also to cooking recipes from the countries which are
allowed to participate in the contest: member States of the European Union,
countries of the basin of the Mediterranean (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan,
Libya, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey), the Balkans,
Norway, Iceland and Switzerland. Futher information can be found http://www.edfirenze.eu/2013/03/eat-in-europe-photo-con/

Photos
have to be sent exclusively by email to 
later than 23.59 of 30th of April 2013.