|
 |
|
Interview with H.E. Nicholas Archer, British High Commissioner talks about how the relationship between britian’s former colony and the uk have matured over the years You speak excellent Maltese, did you learn it especially for this post ?
 Well I had an unfair advantage in that I spoke Arabic, speaking Arabic takes one half way there and it seemed a good idea to change it into Maltese. It’s worked quite nicely actually, although one of the frustrations having learnt it is that I do very little business in it. Everybody I meet has wonderful English, but I think to make the effort, and to make it clear that we’ve made the effort sends the signal that we don’t take Malta for granted and in particular we know there’s more to Malta than the English speaker might necessarily see. There’s a lot going on and not only is there another language, but there’s another culture out there that we need to be familiar with.
Malta is very small, which means the diplomatic circle is very compact. Does this make for easier international contacts and relationships?
What’s wonderful about Malta is the ease of access that we diplomats have to all decision makers. We don’t waste their time, but if there is something you need to talk to someone in the political hierarchy about, you get access. In fact most of my time is not spent in what you might mean by “diplomatic circles”, because what we do nowadays is not just foreign policy but about business, as we are going to discuss, and about the network which exists between Maltese of every walk of life and Britain; academic, professional, cultural and so on.
Since Malta joined the EU, several new countries have opened embassies, does this indicate recognition of Malta’s strategic importance?
I can’t really speak for my colleagues; some European countries simply have a policy of being represented in all the EU member states. We are amongst those countries, because we all need, if not to lobby each other, then to explain our positions on all kinds of issues, and in the end that’s best done face to face, and my European colleagues are, like us, busy doing that.
It has been aired that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office policies are changing, with less emphasis on commercial intercourse, with Malta and other countries, is this correct?
We have diverted quite a lot of resource to the emerging economies, which present huge opportunities to British business. In particular China, where we have seen a huge growth in the diplomatic and trade promotion presence; also countries like India, Brazil which are growing very, very fast. In Europe, the government does not have a central role in trade promotion, narrowly defined. The Single Market is essentially an extension of our domestic market and it shouldn’t be more difficult for a British company to do business in Malta than to do business in an unfamiliar part of the UK. It is a little more complicated for some and we continue to provide support for those companies. Quite recently for example we hosted a trade mission comprising a number of small Midland companies and with our support they were able to make connections and establish agency and export agreements, in a way that they might have found difficult if they had been on their own. But across Europe we’re looking to reduce the government role in straightforward, traditional trade promotion. I should go on though to say that we are not losing interest in commercial and economic relationship in the broader sense, it’s a question of refocusing. One thing that we are very focused on now, and will remain so for the next few years, is the Maltese government’s public procurement, much of which will be funded until 2013 by EU funds. That represents a once in a lifetime opportunity for British exporters.
What about Maltese exporters, are you interested in helping them or setting up Joint Ventures with British companies?
I think we have to be clear that Maltese exporters get helped, if at all, by the Maltese government. Joint Ventures and investment are a bit more complicated. Traditionally our job was to encourage inward investment, the logic was that this would grow the British economy. Over the last decade or so we’ve recognized that government has a role in encouraging outward investment because in a less direct but still measurable way, that too grows the British economy. That truth dawned on us in the early nineties when central Europe opened up and British companies were queuing up for help in buying or buying stakes in newly privatized assets in places like the Czech Republic. Now when it comes to British investment in Malta, we see this as serving the interests of both countries, investment in Malta is unlikely to have a negative impact on the British labour market. So where we can find British companies whom we feel would do well here, yes, we do give them encouragement. John Prescott was here, and we took him down to see new factory of a British company called Dedicated Micros, which moved into its new premises just last year with some help from this High Commission. The reason John Prescott visited was that he recognized the importance of showing British business that for the right kind of company it may make sense to relocate or to develop a business in Malta, and it’s not a zero sum game.
There can be an element of poaching jobs from Europe in the case of say back office administration projects for foreign firms, how do you view that?
We take a pretty phlegmatic attitude. If people chose to come here, by and large we welcome and support them because a sensible investment here will be reflected in the bottom line, which means that the benefits accrue back home. When you mention back office functions I think of a company like Frazer Eagle and it’s absolutely right that it should be operating here as well as the UK. We hear quite a lot about British call centre businesses, some bring business here from UK, and some actually bring business back to Europe from India.
That’s great; the future of European business is fanning businesses out across Europe so companies can operate to their particular advantage not getting hung up on keeping everything at home. There are synergies; if we can bring hi-tech companies here then local business benefits, but equally those hi-tech businesses benefit too and it flows both ways. We have to be broadminded and positive about that.
In fact Malta also enjoys an excellent “low-tech” work force, in that there are skilled mechanics, carpenter/joiners etc, who are missing in much of Europe, will this attract manufacturing business ?
I don’t think there’s a role for government. What I see happening is that British companies coming to Malta are relatively high up the value chain and if you look at flagship companies which are here, they are Vodafone, HSBC, Dedicated Micros, Delarue, who have just begun building a new e-passport factory which will represent a major new commitment to Malta, and which reflects a major vote of confidence in the Maltese work force. This is where the action is today and these types of company point us towards the future. I would like to see more joining them, so we have a concentration of British companies of a particular high value, high quality kind, so we can see perhaps more cross fertilization between them.
There are comments that budgets are being reduced for the Foreign and Comonwealth Office across the world, is this correct or are they just being reshuffled?
This government has tried very hard to keep public spending under control and that affects the FCO. What it means for us here is that we are being asked to do the same but with less. I see that as a positive thing because we are being asked to be more efficient. One of the things I have done during my first year here is cut the cost of this mission quite significantly. Every step of the way we have been talking amongst ourselves about where the pressure points are about the things that we may not be able to do as well. So far not only have we found that we can do everything we have been asked to do, but we have retained some space for initiative that works. That is to say to take advantage of opportunities presented to us. People who are busier with interesting work seem to enjoy it more. It’s not something one can do indefinitely but I would say the High Commission is a more efficient organization than it was, which is in part because we have been obliged to sharpen up, certainly a good thing for the British taxpayer.
The nature of the relationship between Britain and Malta has changed dramatically since Malta entered the EU. For a start it’s put the relationship on a footing of complete equality perhaps the last act of the long drama of independence. Our principal interest in Malta now, and it’s the same for Malta’s interest in the UK, is as a partner in Europe, and that means that we are talking very much about domestic matters such as the Working Times Directive, the Services Directive, bits of legislation which affect the way we work and the way our companies operate. We share an interest in completing the Single Market, which is still not fully in place, so the relationship is a very different one.
Promotion is always important, is the High Commission prepared to work with local bodies to promote British business in Malta, or Maltese business in UK ?
We no longer exist to promote British business in an unfocussed way. The trading relationship largely looks after itself and should be able to do so within the Single Market. Most EU member states take the same view. Malta imports about LM1.47 billion annually, about 10% from UK. That is good and is done without any government involvement from either side. We are asked to focus in other areas, and we do perform a service, which is much valued back home of spotting market opportunities, in particular when there is a public sector tender. Then there is the much bigger and more complex business for the public procurement of very sophisticated goods and services like the various procurements for the Mater Dei hospital. As was announced recently, i-Soft, a British company has won the contract to provide software for patient records, management, for the transitional phase - this involved us a lot. So we are moving out of the type of promotion to which your question pointed. For the first time in many years there will not be a UK stand at the International Trade Fair, because that sort of promotion is no longer what we do in Europe. That was a difficult decision because there has been a long tradition of our being there, but we only want to be engaged where we can measure the extra value we can add.
Could your absence from the Trade Fair be used as counter productive PR by rivals ?
I hope I’ve explained our decision. Our absence does not say that our commitment to doing business with Malta is any the less, it says that we have looked at our priorities and we have made some logical decisions about where we should allocate limited resources. If you talk around the business community there are huge numbers of people who do business with the UK, turning first to Britain because their professional training is British or is derived from a very similar system. Because English is their language and because they recognize that across a host of areas we still offer unparalleled quality. I think of the closeness of the ties, which exist between say Maltese engineers, insurers, accountants, bankers etc and their British counterparts. Not to mention other professions such as the law and medicine. Indeed I would say that after a year in this country, my conclusion is that as long as those ties are in good order, the relationship will continue to be close and the business will continue to come directly, which is how it should be.
So can we say that the evolvement of policy is based on good, well-analysed commercial common sense?
Yes, absolutely, I have no reservations about what we are doing. We are always looking at where we can add value and where there is a need for government to do something that only government can do. Far from creating suspicions of a lack of commitment, I find when I explain what we are up to professionals in business, people who are used to running companies dealing with bottom lines, that not only do they understand what we are trying to do but that understanding enhances their respect for us.
|
