Malta Maritime News
“Beyond a European Sustainable Tourism MED Path” (BEST MED) Project Kicks-Off in Malta
Malta Marittima Agency is partner in the ‘Best Med’ Interreg Med Project and hosted the kick-off Conference and first Steering Committee meeting for this project on Friday 31st January 2020, at the Plaza Hotel in Sliema.
During the kick-off Conference, local stakeholders had the opportunity to meet and discuss thematic issues with the Best Med project partners. Representatives from national Ministries and respective Authorities and maritime industry were present for the meeting.
The main specific objectives of Best Med are:
- Creating and coordinating integrated transnational offer for reducing seasonality (in time and space) and mitigating its negative effects;
- Enhancing cooperation and synergies across Med countries (including from the south MED shore) in order to promote the Med area as a unified – but diversified – destination in the global tourism market;
- Fostering sustainable tourism through cultural heritage policies in the Med area, promoting the redistribution of tourists from coastlines to inlands.
Malta Marittima Partner in EU Funded Projects
Malta Marittima Agency is responsible for implementing the national Integrated Maritime Policy (IMP) and promote maritime policies with the aim to stimulate a sustainable blue economy. It covers areas such as blue growth, maritime and coastal tourism, sea basin strategies, logistics, services, marine data and knowledge and maritime surveillance amongst others. On EU level, the Agency works on various cross-sectoral maritime policies and initiatives that fall under DG MARE. Besides, the Agency is also responsible for the development of the national maritime clusters to provide a more coherent approach to maritime and marine issues with increased coordination between the public and private stakeholders on a national level.
In its endeavour to provide the necessary management, networking and support services for the existing and potential maritime investment opportunities in Malta, Malta Marittima has managed to partner in four EU funded projects that commenced in January 2020. The four projects that have been selected by the Evaluation Board of the European Commission are the following:
- Empowering innovation capacity of SMEs, maritime clusters and networks in MED island and coastal areas to support blue circular economy growth (Blue FASMA - Interreg Med Programme)
- Blue Energy Deployment Alliance (Blue DEAL - Interreg Med Programme)
- Beyond European Sustainable Tourism Med Path (Best MED - Interreg Med Programme)
- European cluster-led accelerator for digitisation of the circular economy across key emerging sectors (DigiCirc - Horizon 2020 Programme)
Malta Prioritises Blue Economy And Maritime Cluster
When Malta held the presidency of the European Union Council two years ago, the maritime sector was a declared priority.Felicity Landon gauges the position now. Click here to continue reading
Malta Maritime Seed Award 2019
MarSA, the Maritime Seed Award, set up jointly by Malta Marittima and the University of Malta in 2017, has enabled various teams of entrepreneurs and researches to receive funding. An awards ceremony took place at the University TAKEOFF Business Incubator and was presided by Prof. Ing. Saviour Zammit, Pro-Rector for Research & Knowledge Transfer, Mr. Jason Bongailas, Senior Manager of Malta Marittima Agency, Prof. Russell Smith, Director of the University’s Centre for Entrepreneurship and Business Incubation, and Dr Ing. Anton Bartolo, Director of the University Knowledge Transfer Office, attended this event. A total of €159,980 was awarded to beneficiaries between 2018 and the first call in 2019.
