GRTU Survey On EU Funding

Following the interesting initial of the Secretariat for Small Businesses to launch the Intrapriza Malta initiative and the greater effort by Malta Enterprise to inform the small businesses owners' community of the various EU funded schemes now in operation in favour of small enterprises, GRTU conducted a survey among a cross section of small businesses from various economic activities.

GRTU issued 250 questionnaires and 120 of them were responded. The comments quoted are among the most striking and grouped. The results of the survey conducted during the Intrapriza Malta week are below. 

Commenting on these results Mr. Vince Farrugia, Director General GRTU says, "We are not really surprised as the way these EU funded schemes are being sold still leaves a lot to be desired. First of all though substantial sums are being put available as loans and as guarantees the authorities are failing to understand two crucial problems. First of all that long period of recession and poor growth has had a terrible cash flow effect on many businesses as they retained their level of operations including labour content even as gross private consumption went down and receipts from sales fell down and secondly as they plan to re-emerge, expand and move to new projects most firms are caught in a banking trap. Saddled as they are with loan payments on previous loans and large overdraft and therefore the space for new loans simply do not exist. The schemes now available do not cater for this kind of problem. Indeed they specifically deny the option of financial re packaging for firms who want to move further in spite of the strains imposed on their financial commitments by the recession. This situation was remedied where exporters were involved but not for small firms working on the local market who together employ 40% of Maltese labour. GRTU is in fact making new proposals for Budget 2012. Which address this acute problem in a very clear way."  

Report replies and main comments:

Schemes applied for:

• ERDF International Competitiveness Grant Scheme
• Equal Project
• MTA & ETC
• EAP Scheme
• Jeremie Loan BOV
• Micro Invest
• Employment Aid Programme
• Marketing for Export

Schemes which could be of interest:

• Marketing & Training
• Schemes for Training new workers
• Schemes for IT Development
• Schemes for importing and exporting medicines
• Purchase of equipment for film production
• Expanding Operations
• Tax rebates
• Photovoltaic Schemes
• Software Investment
• Help in employees wage

Why are business owners not interesting in applying:

• Lost faith in Malta Enterprise
• Not worth the effort to apply
• Some sectors have limited sales
• Not much benefits
• SME s are abandoned
• A lot of forms to fill when it comes to applying, no info
• No help for importers