|
Why should you invest in Malta?
Despite the size limitations, the Maltese islands boast a healthy and effective economy with potential for future growth. Since joining the EU in 2004, Malta was declared as a good performer by the EU and has respected the Maastricht criteria prior to adopting the Euro in January 2008.
Malta's key benefits to business:
- Open market economy with free movement of capital and labour;
- Member in the European Union
- Malta is a signatory to a good number of international agreements, mainly in the economic and financial domains, not forgetting maritime and air transport and culture
- The European Union is its leading trade partner, however, exports to United States (17%), Asia (32%) and North Africa are significant.
- Product-driven environment;
- Relative cost advantage;
- Multi-lingual community - English and Italian spoken and written fluently; French, Spanish and German also spoken by a substantial number of people;
- Strong IT workforce - Malta is the Regional Training Centre for Cisco, Microsoft and Oracle;
- The legislative framework is in line with the main EU directives, being sufficiently flexible and versatile to relate to different legal systems;
- Paramount anti-money laundering standards have nurtured financial services sector;
- Excellent economic track record with sustained growth, economic and political stability;
- Boasts an inflation rate and long-term interest rate lower than EU average;
- A modern and competitive tax regime providing an excellent base for setting up tax efficient structures. The highest individual tax rate is of 35%;
- Established banking and insurance facilities have led to a sharp growth in financial intermediary services;
- High standard of living - good quality of life, low criminal rate, excellent health services and offers diverse entertainment and sport facilities;
- Social capital is the prime resource in Malta, having a labour force availability of more than 6% of the Maltese population at graduate and post graduate levels;
- Excellent country sovereign credit rating - ‘A' rating with a stable outlook by Standard and Poor - indicating a high to medium quality investment;
- Foreign investment has enabled the island to modernise over the past decade. Malta is therefore ready and prepared for the competition.
- Pharmacy, electronics, information technology, agric-foods, the environment or fine chemistry are a number of sectors rich with opportunities for investors.
- Besides the "normal" limited liability company, which is the norm in the manufacturing sector, Malta proposes two other distinct type of company: the International Holding Company (IHC) and the International Trading Company (ITC).
|