A boost to the economy

I’m glad my eldest son is beginning to discover the joys of Playmobil. A couple of days ago I had the opportunity to join the Prime Minister, and fellow MEP candidates, on a tour of Playmobil’s Hal Far base. When the winds of the economic crisis continue to blow across the world, it was heartening to see that the company, headed by Helga Ellul, not only employs some 800 people running shifts 24-hours a day, seven days a week, but announced that it is to invest a further 6 million Euros over the next year.

Playmobil has become something of a Maltese institution and has been expertly guided through this crisis – so much so that it has seen an increase in its exports over the last 12 months.

In an excellent example of industry-education cooperation, the company is developing cutting edge research in their IT department, with ICT graduates from UoM and MCAST, and collaborates in a training programme with MCAST. Increasing the links between higher education and industry is being pushed both on a Maltese and European level as one way of combating the financial crisis as well as a method to increase the employability of graduates by ensuring their skills, knowledge and competencies are relevant to the labour market.

Now there’s a true success story.