The Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry has welcomed the Brexit deal struck between the UK and the European Union. 

In his first reaction to the announced agreement, chamber president David Xuereb said the most important aspect of this deal from the Malta perspective is the fact that the UK will not be treated as a third country even though it had decided to leave the European bloc. 

“The reaction will obviously be a positive one because we were always hoping that some form of deal is struck. The UK has always been an ally to Malta. A mother country you can say. The fact that it will not be considered to be a third country but an important country is very positive for Malta in our view. The UK will remain close to the EU and therefore closer to Malta,” Xuereb said when contacted. 

Another important aspect of the deal, he said, is the waiver on UK products which means that UK products entering the EU market, and therefore including Malta, will not be charged anything extra. This is good news because it means that the products we previously imported from the UK will not be seeing a radical price increase as we expected, he said. 

However, he said, it was still unclear whether the services will be offered the same treatment or whether services will be taxed separately. 

“Malta imports a substantial amount of services from the UK, mainly because of the language and Maltese companies often seek partners from the UK for projects. It is still unclear whether services will be given the same treatment as products but we will have to see the 200-page document that was signed and see the details to know how this will affect us,” he said. 

Xuereb said the implementation of the deal will take a while and there are some things on which no agreement was found but it seemed that these would not have any particular effect on Malta. 

Businesses have been stockpiling non-perishable products from the United Kingdom as the prospect of a no-deal Brexit was becoming increasingly likely.

Medicinal products, medical equipment, food with a long shelf-life and clothing are among the goods which Maltese businesses had stocked up well in advance the looming deadline for a trade agreement between the UK and the European Union.
 
Businesses had started to make alternative arrangements by contacting their British suppliers to seeks some form of other arrangement or else try source the products from other markets.