Malta, the ‘Gateway to the EU’, invites investors from India
the shareholder upon a distribution of dividends. Besides a no-profit-no-tax policy, Malta has a double taxation avoidance agreement with 65 countries, including India.
Indian drug major Aurobindo Pharma set shop in Malta in 2008 to cater to the European market. The facility now dispatches close to 4,000 batches of medicines a year, which it plans to increase to 6,000 by 2015, says Federick Schembri, MD of Aurobindo Pharma (Malta) Ltd, and Jonathan Farrugia, Qualified Person for Batch Release (Europe). Since Vijay Mallya’s superyacht, Indian Empress , is registered under the Malta Flag, the country hopes other high-net-worth individuals from India would follow suit while looking at yacht registration. In fact, Transport Malta offers a 24/7 registration service with expert guidance, one of the reasons why the country has “one of the world’s biggest ship registers”. Inviting Indians to also register their aircraft with it, Transport Malta offers services ranging from aircraft maintenance and repair to aircraft management. Malta, which already has over 1,400 ICT firms, also has ambitions of becoming a software hub. It is already Europe’s e-Gaming capital, offering operators a “well-regulated cost-effective” location to develop their business.
Malta Enterprise, an entity under the ministry of finance, has an office in Mumbai.
The writer was in Malta on the invitation of Malta Enterprise.
Calling Bollywood
Valletta: While Malta is quite popular with Western filmmakers, with big budget films like Troy, The Da Vinci Code and Munich extensively shot here, the Film Commission of Malta is now keen on Indian film makers
