Knowledge platform for SMEs in the pipeline

TradeMalta, the public private partnership formed between the government and the Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry has been given the green light for EU funding for the development of a knowledge platform for SMEs.

The platform will provide SMEs with sector and market reports, eLearning content, planning tools and other knowledge assets that are needed to find international markets. The platform will be developed over the next 24 months and will benefit from close to a million Euro in funding.

“This will ensure that SMEs in Malta will at least be at par with their counterparts in leading European countries, when it comes to knowledge-based support,” read a statement by TradeMalta.

The internationalization knowledge platform will be co-financed under the Operational Programme I - European Structural and Investment Funds 2014-2020 “Fostering a competitive and sustainable economy to meet our challenges”.

Since its conception, TradeMalta has offered assistance to SMEs including co-financing of export marketing initiatives, training and matchmaking. TradeMalta hopes that through this knowledge platform the agency will be able to offer engaging and credible content that will be useful to SMEs and their efforts to tap into international markets. This represents an important milestone for TradeMalta which began operating 16 months ago, and has since assisted over 200 SMEs exhibit in various trade fairs overseas. TradeMalta has also taken 122 firms on trade missions, had 20 SMEs on an early-stage exporter programme, 18 SMEs on a programme for existing exporters and has also conducted 3 surveys on key sectors.  

TradeMalta said that it believes there is a demand for knowledge services for exporters and is committed to living up to its promise of being the first port of call for SMEs interested in exporting and internationalizing their products and services. 

Tenders for the procurement of key content components are expected to start being published by the end of this year.