Updated September 22 11.15am
A Boston-based currency printer is to open a "state-of-the-art" $100 million facility in Malta, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat announced today.
Speaking by live link from Crane Currency's headquarters in Boston, USA, Dr Muscat said the investment would create 200 jobs, rising to 300 over time.
"The last time our country attracted an investment of this magnitude with a comparable number of employees was in 1981...with what is now STMicroelectronics," the Prime Minister said.
The facility will be situated in Ħal Far, Dr Muscat said, and would herald a "turnaround" for the manufacturing sector after a tough few years.
New training courses would be announced during the next year to ensure "the young and not-so-young" keen to land a job at Crane Currency would be equipped to do so, the Prime Minister said.
He said that the company would join a "significant" community of American investors in Malta, and that the investment made good on the government's pledge to go beyond European shores in search of investment.
Crane was founded in 1801 by Zenas Crane in Boston. It now has facilities in the USA and Sweden and is involved in the currencies of more than 50 nations around the world.
Crane Currency CEO Stephen Defalco said the "state-of-the-art" centre would be a flagship facility for the company.
"This project went from idea to fully-developed plan in just six months," Mr Delfalco said, as he praised the Maltese negotiating team as "the most professional and responsive team I have worked with".
'Here's hoping it happens' - PN
In a statement, the Nationalist Party said that it hoped the Crane Currency investment would materialise, unlike other investments "announced with much pomp by the Prime Minister but which never saw the light of day."
The PN said that the Prime Minister had promised 500 jobs at a hospital at Smart City, "but a year and a half later, nothing has been done about it."
It welcomed Crane Currency, and said that their presence was needed to make up for the "hundreds" of jobs lost at fellow banknote manufacturer De La Rue over the past months.