‘Game-changing’ legislation to provide incentives to foreign and local family businesses

An amendment being proposed to the Family Business Act will be ‘game-changing’ to foreign and local family businesses and would allow these same business the opportunity to benefit from more government incentives, Economy minister Chris Cardona said.

Of the 80% of businesses that are controlled or directly related to families, he said only 30% are successful – a success rate that needed improving.

Cardona said that the current administration was a “pro-business” one, adding that the government understood that these trades require the government’s full support.

The minister said that the transfer of family businesses is family trades’ biggest challenge since if this is not done properly, a business that has been in the family for generations could be lost.

“We are the first EU member state,” Cardona said, “to draft a legislation that grants powers to the government to incentivise family businesses.”

This law, he argued, will even be a game-changer for foreign nationals since the legislation will also allow foreign family businesses to register their businesses in Malta.

While PN MP, Edwin Vassallo, agreed with these measures, he asked whether there will be a quantification of who will enjoy these incentives. “In our effort to fight bureaucracy, we might in effect be instigating it,” he said. “Are we only including major-brand companies as eligible for these incentives? All hawkers and street-vendors are family businesses too.” 

Vassallo said that the government had not yet truly offered a helping hand to small businesses, insisting that he wasn’t simply being negative.

Vassallo made reference to PN MEPs projecting a spotlight on corruption in the country. “Are we the ones being negative when we talk about corruption or are the ones engendering it that are negative?”

The PN MP said that the government’s mantra of ‘the best of times’ (l-aqwa zmien) and its constant reference to a surplus is distracting from the fact that the gap between businesses doing very well and suffering businesses is growing wider. “It’s not the best of times for everybody,” he said.