The Foundation for Transport (FfT) and the Malta Employers Association (MEA) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding strengthening the co-founder relationship between the two institutions and allowing the two sides to intensify their collaboration, exchange of information and mutual promotion through their respective fora.
The agreement was signed by MEA’s Director General Joseph Farrugia and Chairperson of the Foundation for Transport Michael Callus.
In particular, the agreement will ensure increased awareness among MEA members of the initiatives launched by the Foundation for Transport to generate awareness about careers in the transport sector, in particular in the maritime, logistics and aviation spheres, to identify and pursue catalysts to set into motion change to greener technologies in transport and be able to attract technology innovators to Malta and Gozo.
This relationship assumes stronger relevance in the current scenario where the Foundation is piloting a number of initiatives with educational institutions to match the short-and-longer-term skills need of private industry players in transport. The Foundation will utilise MEAINDEX to launch surveys to seek employers’ feedback on various thematic areas, such as defining skills gaps, defining solutions to address these gaps, scoping accelerators for the adoption of green technologies.
FfT Chairperson Michael Callus said:
As one of its cofounders, the Foundation has found MEA as a strong supporter of one of the main missions of the Foundation, to enable private industry to keep up with the pace of all progressive developments in transport.
Collaboratively, both entities will have new opportunities to strengthen their efforts in facilitating access for information and be hand-holding partners in the process of re-training and upscaling their day-to-day skills needs in business operations.
MEA Director General Joseph Farrugia said: “The signing of this agreement formalises the strong and excellent relationship between MEA and the FfT which started right at the outset of the Foundation’s inception way back in 2020. In fact, we are one of the 5 co-founders of the Foundation. To date the two parties collaborated on various initiatives of mutual interest not least SMEWEEK events, webinars and research projects amongst MEA members, besides involving the Foundation in our MEA TV Programmes.”
“We felt that a natural way forward in strengthening this cooperation is through the MEAINDEX online platform initiative, through which the Association is already collaborating with another 15 partner entities. This line tool has so far attracted 113,000 new visitors who generated almost 300, 000 page views. The platform, in fact, provides a single point of contact directory for the local and European business ecosystem and continuously alerts the business community to relevant business-related news, initiatives, schemes and funding opportunities”, concluded the MEA Director General.
Mr Farrugia thanked Mr Callus and pledged the MEA’s disposition to go the extra mile in cooperating and sharing knowledge and resources with the Foundation.
