Swiss team wins YE finals

For the second year running, a Swiss Young Enterprise team yesterday won the prestigious Junior Achievement - Young Enterprise European Final Competition.

The winning team is PrimeCut, who produce trendy belts from used newspapers. Second placed was R@ from Estonia, while Presnatch, of Sweden, came third.

Teams from 21 countries competed for yesterday's award. Malta was represented by Solutions, that had produced waste separation bins as well as an SMS service informing students when a lecture is cancelled or postponed.

The last time a Maltese team won the award was in 2002 through the Young Enterprise team Mixables. Local teams won the prestigious award four times in 14 years.

Presenting the winning team with a trophy, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi praised the students for their hard work and commitment and also commended Young Enterprise Malta for offering this opportunity for tomorrow's business leaders.

On Friday, the participating teams met the judges and rehearsed their presentations on the Mediterranean Conference Centre stage where the finals were held.

Around 300 foreign students and officials of Young Enterprise organisations in Europe were here for the past three days participating in a number of activities.

Among the officials who attended the event were the chairman of Junior Achievement - Young Enterprise Europe (JA-YEE) Jorgen Clausen, and the chairman of the executive committee, Michel Brull. Caroline Jenner, the chief executive officer of JA-YEE, also attended.

Apart from organising yesterday's event, this year saw the recruitment of a new chief executive officer for Young Enterprise Malta and a new programme co-ordinator. Meanwhile Josef Camilleri was elected chairman of Young Enterprise Malta.

Yesterday's event was organised through the support of a number of companies, particularly HSBC Bank Malta plc, PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Intercomp.

David Demarco, the chief financial officer of HSBC Bank Malta plc, Young Enterprise Malta's main sponsor, said that Young Enterprise had again shown that Malta has a bright economic future and this was one of the reasons why the bank continued to support this healthy initiative.