Speech By the Minister for Transport and Communications, the Hon. Censu Galea, during a conference held at Marina di Ragusa, Sicily, with the theme ‘Development of Yachting Centres in Ragusa’ - Saturday, 16th February, 2002

Honourable Ministers

Mr Mayor

Ladies and Gentlemen.

First of all, I would like to thank you for your invitation to participate in this conference here, in Ragusa, and also for your hospitality.

I can realize what the feeling would be for all those who have worked so hard to see this project materialize, especially after so many years of expectation.

I must admit that we were in the same situation years ago, when we had to wait for quite a long time to get authorizations, funds and designs, and finally procure pontoons to make our yacht marinas functional. However, time goes by very quickly and we are now 13 years away from the day when we berthed the first boats on the new pontoons at the Msida Marina, the largest one in Malta. Luckily, we did not wait so much for smaller marinas that were constructed later.

What was our experience?

At first we were a bit worried. But we got away with our fears, for we managed to get clients instantly and we are now in a situation of not entertaining the entire requests we have. In fact, we have a waiting list of 300 boats to get a berthing place on our marinas. I am confident that this problem would ease when two other marinas that are being constructed would be ready to provide more berths.

This means that once a marina is in place, an unexpected situation would crop out. New boat owners would become yachting enthusiasts. Provided that berthing places are available, new boats will come. I must say that it is not an easy task to keep the pace. If do not want to loose clients you must focus on high quality services. If you do not render a good service as on the first instance, you stand a good chance that clients would look for other places. You must prove yourself to be efficient and that your hospitality is good value for money especially when dealing with foreign boat owners. Once well managed, a yacht marina would generate economical activity, with clients demanding services thus creating jobs for the locals. You must secure ‘Reputation’, and once it is established that Ragusa is a good and safe yachting centre where good services prevail, then you must ensure continuity.

I believe that there is room for collaboration between various yachting centers in the Mediterranean. This is very important especially when boats can navigate fast between one centre and another.

My belief is that the Maltese experience could be of great help to Ragusa’s initiatives and this augurs well for greater cooperation between Malta and Sicily.

Thank you.