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Malta Enterprise adopts UK strategy on industrial estates
Government entity Malta Industrial Parks has adopted a British report on the management of 14 industrial estates located around Malta and Gozo.
26 December 2011, 12:00am
Karl Stagno-Navarra
Karl Stagno-Navarra
1 min read
Playmobil - who has a 40,000 square metre manufacturing facility - formed part of the strategy
Additional reporting by Miriam Dalli
In 2009 the Maltese government entrusted Property consultancy firm Colliers International with identifying a management strategy for the 30,000,000 sq ft portfolio, examining all aspects of the portfolio, management structures, procedures and policies.
The team's recommendations - amounting to a 400-page report - were formally adopted by Malta Industrial Parks Ltd (MIPL), which holds the portfolio on behalf of the government. Implementation of the recommendations has already started.
The portfolio comprises 14 separate industrial estates located across Malta and Gozo. These include starter unit estates, a technology park, a crafts village and major manufacturing estates, with some individual estates covering more than one million sq metres and more than 4,000 employees on site. Occupiers include a call centre for HSBC and a 40,000 sq m Playmobil manufacturing facility.
Martyn Edwards, who heads Colliers International's investment property management team in Birmingham, visited Malta six times in order to assess the portfolio.
Apart from benchmarking rents and carrying an overhaul of the rent collection and service charge strategies, the consultancy firm also studied maintenance and estate management programmes for each of the properties.
"With manufacturing accounting for 17% of Malta's GDP and with its industrial portfolio being a major income generator for the nation, it is vital that the industrial property assets perform well and are leveraged for maximum income generation," Edwards said.
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Maltabiss we think that you have got the issue wrong. The rents in Cyprus are lower than those in Malta by 50% and so the competition is fierce.
If Malta Enterprise wishes to encourage businesses to Malta - like the new Photo-Voltaic project which will create 2000 jobs and the biofuels programme which will create 400 jobs during 2012 to 2015 - then it should take note that Malta is not the omly place for new businesses and inward investment.
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What the Gonz should say is that he was ordered by the eu to impose heavy increase in factories rents because it considered the rates in Malta to amount to subsidies and therefore illegal State Aid. ** The eu wanted the rent to be increased to at least €27 per square metre and the present increase has been covered on the petty excuse of up-keeping the industrial areas. ** So this is only the beginning and the entrepreneurs must be prepared to pay much higher rents as dictated by the eu dictators. ** Somehow this reminds me of Mrs Bucket.
