Finance Malta, the public-private initiative set up to promote Malta as an international financial centre, is to expand its focus on the markets of Asia, the Middle East and the US, as well as develop areas that show high potential for growth, including international pensions, Islamic finance and Malta’s capital markets.

“We will be focusing on leading financial jurisdictions in Asia, as well as Dubai and New York, without of course, neglecting our core European markets such as the UK, Switzerland, Italy and Germany,” Ivan Grech, Finance Malta head of business development, told The Sunday Times of Malta.

“Asia has enormous potential in areas such as wealth management, capital markets and asset management, which have all shown remarkable growth. Asia is without doubt the largest market we could potentially target,” he said.

Mr Grech said that the increase in Finance Malta’s budget made it possible for the organisation to expand its marketing activities outside its core markets. “Now that our budget has been increased we can go further and expand into new markets. We will be specifically targeting New York in the US, which obviously needs no introduction, and we see potential there in insurance, the funds industry and the reinsurance market,” he said, adding that Finance Malta officials will be visiting New York in February.

Dubai, a leading financial jurisdiction, is also an important target for Malta. This month, Finance Malta will be supporting the Henley & Partners ninth Global Residence and Citizenship Conference in Dubai as well as participating at the GCC Family Wealth Forum and Summit, also in Dubai, where the spotlight will be on Malta and the recently issued White Paper on the Family Business Act.

“Our legislation is already Islamic finance compliant and we see an opportunity in Dubai for wealth management and capital markets,” Mr Grech explained.

Mr Grceh said that the financial services sector in Malta has seen some remarkable and robust growth over recent years and is now a major force in the country’s economy, contributing approximately 13 per cent of GDP in 2014.

The asset management sector has seen fast growth driven by new fund set-ups and redomiciliations from non-EU jurisdictions to a total of over 600 investment funds with a combined net asset value of approximately €10 billion.

Key international insurance operators in Malta now number 60, and there were a total of 27 credit and 33 financial institutions as at 2014.

Recently released NSO Statistics show that 98 per cent of all foreign direct investment in Malta in 2014 came from financial services and insurance, for a total of €139 billion out of €142 billion.

Some of the initiatives that Finance Malta has recently participated in were the influential Spear’s Wealth Insight Forum 2015 and a back-to-back event entitled ‘Family Office Solutions: A Malta Perspective’ in London; an educational clinic on venture capital and early-stage finance held in Malta, as well as participation in a trade delegation to Turkey.

London will also be hosting two important events where Finance Malta will be involved – promoting Malta’s capital markets in conjunction with the Malta Stock Exchange, and launching the Annual Malta Funds Conference together with the Malta Funds Industry Association on Thursday.

Finance Malta will also be addressing the Commonwealth Business Forum as part of the CHOGM Malta 2015 Business Forum.

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