Malta trade mission to boost region's creatives

A trade mission is heading for Malta next month in a bid to boost opportunities for the creative industries in the West Midlands.

The trip is being organised by the West Midlands Combined Authority and Create Central, as part of the West Midlands Creative Scale Up Programme.

The latter is a £1.3m two-year programme funded by the government, and it aims to help creative businesses in the West Midlands via a number of initiatives, including access to finance, workshops and mentoring sessions.

The Malta trip takes place from 3 to 6 November, and will include meetings with the Malta Film Commission, Gaming Malta and Malta Enterprise.

Malta Enterprise will give an overview of the country and its economy. There will also be a meeting with Heritage Malta, and as part of this there will be a visit to locations used in the hit TV series 'Game of Thrones '.

For those who don 't know the country, Malta is at first sight an unlikely place for the creative industries to target, as most people know it principally for tourism.

However, film production has been a huge contributor to the local economy, with more that 100 feature films being wholly or partially shot in the country between the dawn of Hollywood in the 1920s and 2016.

The country often stands in for a variety of locations and periods of history, such as ancient Rome and Greece, and the countries of the Middle East.

The Maltese government offers various financial incentives to filmmakers, to encourage them to use the country.

Creative Scale Up manager Fiona Latter said: “We are very much looking forward to visiting Malta with a number of companies from our very successful WM Creative Scale Up Programme.

“Malta is a very digitally aware country, which will enable any business looking to expand or do business there access to a very well qualified digital talent pool.

“With this, alongside a shared interest in Birmingham 2022 as a Commonwealth country as well as a number of tax and other financial incentives available for businesses looking to conduct business there, our trade mission to Malta from November 3 to 6 2021 promises to offer a number of collaborative opportunities for businesses based here in the West Midlands. ”