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Advertisers MFSC - Malta Financial Services Centre Maltese-American Chamber of Commerce METCO - Malta External Trade Corporation Ltd.
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A history of ship repair through the ages
When the Knights of St. John arrived in Malta in 1530, they were disappointed with their new home, but they were attracted to the island’s harbors. Since the order was now more naval than a land force, the Knights appreciated the safe havens. The Knights’ arrival on the island brought increased traffic and a major upgrade in the ports’ repair facilities. When the British became responsible for Malta in 1800, one of their main objectives was to keep the newly defeated French out. With the British in charge of the Mediterranean Sea, all mercantile shipping was forced to stop in Valletta Harbour, Malta for clearance by the British Navy. With massive traffic passing through, Malta became the most important center for trade in the region and the most important shipyard in the Mediterranean.
In the 1970s, the Maltese government developed the dockyard into a fully commercial shipyard under Maltese management. The history of the dockyard since then has been a varied one. According to the Ministry for Economic Services, the ship repair and shipbuilding industries account for a large number of very skilled workers and represent a significant accumulated investment in plant and equipment. At the same time, the Malta Drydocks and Malta Shipbuilding have been heavily subsidized from public funds and often been a repository for excess labor.
Today, the government is working to assist both the Drydocks and Shipbuilding through an extremely painful restructuring process, which includes reducing employment, changing workers’ mentality, and increasing profitability and efficiencies.
In the meantime, the yards are actively seeking new contracts. During the past year, Minister of Economic Services Josef Bonnici and Drydocks’ representatives met with U.S. Navy contacts to explore possible new opportunities. During late 1999, the U.S. Navy sent an audit team to Malta Drydocks. The team’s task was to review all the internal processes, facilities and capabilities of the shipyard. Following the satisfactory outcome of this audit, the U.S. Navy gave its stamp of approval to Malta Drydocks to carry out repairs on U.S. Naval Auxiliary vessels. This approval means that Malta Drydocks can for now bid for any relevant tenders.
Bonnici is pleased that the Drydocks has received U.S. Navy approval, as well as a number of others. According to Bonnici, the government plans to improve Malta’s exposure to U.S. shipping lines and to try to ensure a constant flow of work. However, Bonnici echoes many analysts’ views that one of the Drydock’s main challenges is to improve the time taken to service ships while making sure that contracts remain profitable.
At the same time, the yards face other challenges, including an aging work force, changing work practices, an increase in competition from neighboring countries and still overstaffed yards. In response to these challenges, the yards are instituting new management methods and more advanced work practices. The shipyard has already spent almost $200,000 in the last ten months on both management and worker training to give the yard a more commercial outlook. The yards are trying to remake their image into one that shows the world that it is a modern, efficient commercial enterprise.
The Dockyard is already on its way to proving to the world that it has the up-to-date facilities to serve the world’s modern ships. Their facilities are capable of docking 94 percent of the world’s fleet and 99.6 percent of ships trading in the Mediterranean. The drydocks is investing in equipment to bring all seven docks to their maximum potential. All equipment is periodically maintained to the highest standards and is ready for use when needed.
Malta is already known as the place to go to get high-quality service on time at the right price. Now, the island is busy marketing itself to those who want to be confident that they can rely on sophisticated ship- repair facilities in a strategic location in the middle of the Mediterranean.
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Table of Contents Building bridges and embracing the future |
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Malta’s natural harbors were the main attraction for the Phoenicians, one of the island’s earliest occupiers. When the Phoenicians arrived on Malta in about 800 BC, they did not want to use the island as a base to establish an empire, instead they were looking for a chain of safe harbors where they could repair and refit their vessels. Later, the Romans used the island as a wintering port and as a place where they could overhaul their vessels during the seasonal break.
With the signing of a new collective agreement, the Drydocks plan to return to its core function, repairing ships. The agreement is expected to make the ship repair operation more efficient and divest it of extra labor, according to the Ministry of Economic Services. After the restructuring at the shipbuilding company, two yards will be merged into "one yard with a "leaner and meaner" core ship repair section, a smaller and very focused shipbuilding section and a diversified ‘enterprises’ section engaged in other work (related to but not ship repair and shipbuilding).
To complement its new image, Malta Dockyards has created a new corporate philosophy whereby it strives to "consistently provide our customers with the best repair and conversion services through individual attention and unequalled experience." It plans to back up this philosophy by "providing services that are second to none and meet the highest standards of performance, quality and safety while upholding the highest standards of business conduct in our role as customer, supplier and employer and promoting internal customer/supplier interaction," said Dockyard representatives.