[WATCH] Legal amendments geared towards attracting investment in aviation sector

Edward Zammit Lewis on changes to aircraft registration act (Video by Ray Attard)

Civil aviation authorities are in talks with a commercial airline which is in interested in registering its aircraft in Malta, the director general for civil aviation at Transport Malta said yesterday.

Speaking to the press during the public consultation on the revision of the Aircraft Registration Act, George Borg Marks did not wish to give more details on the negotiations at this stage, but he remarked that other companies had already relocated from abroad over the past years.

Sucessive governments have actively sought to bolster the budding aviation industry by investing in ancillary services such as maintenance, repair and overhaul operations and the proposed amendments to the law regulating the registration of aircraft aims at giving the country a cutting edge and guarantee legal security to operators.

Moreover, the fiscal incentives have been matched by investments in infrastructure to accommodate key players in the aviation sector, especially through the €17 million Safi Aviation Park opened in 2012.

During today’s public consultation meeting, industry operators were given a presentation by lawyer Max Ganado on proposed amendments to the aircraft registration act.
Tourism minister Edward Zammit Lewis said the law was being fine-tuned to reflect today’s realities and attract more companies to register their aircraft in Malta.

Currently, around 172 aircraft are registered in Malta and the aviation industry directly employs around 2,000 people on a full-time basis. The sector contributes to around 3.5% of GDP.

Most aircraft registered in Malta are private business jets which are used by VIPs and businesses based abroad.
“We are making the law more attractive to draw more operators to Malta, which will result in more investment, revenue and jobs,” Zammit Lewis said.

However, government is looking at improving the sector beyond the legal and fiscal frameworks and the tourism minister explained that in the coming months more incentives will be launched.

Noting that aviation industry has registered notable growth over the years, the minister said “we’ll offer more incentives to achieve more growth and we are looking beyond simply extending the aircraft registry but we are aiming at expending the aviation industry cluster.”

Ancillary services include aircraft leasing, aircraft finance services, maintenance repair operations and other services such English aviation language courses.