De La Rue staying in Malta because of Brexit, not Muscat and Cardona

The Maltese government has sought to take credit for De La Rue’s decision to stay in Malta and expand operations.

Prime Minister Muscat and Economy Minister Chris Cardona – who no doubt had to be wrenched away for the purpose from the bar-counter at The Stable – called journalists to a press conference, described by The Malta Independent as “hastily arranged”, at which Cardona said that De La Rue’s decision is the result of “discussions with Malta Enterprise”, for which he is responsible except where that organisation’s erstwhile agent in Shanghai, Sai Mizzi Liang, is concerned. Cardona also said that this shows “De La Rue’s trust in Malta”, for which read “trust in Malta’s government”.

It’s all total rubbish, of course. De La Rue was forced by the Brexit vote in the UK to reverse its decision to wind down its Malta operation. The company has just two currency-printing operations in the EU: the UK and Malta. It intended to focus on the UK operation, but when the UK voted to pull out of the EU, De La Rue had to not only retain its Malta operation but also bump it up. Had it carried on with plans to wind down the Malta operation, with the UK pulling out of the EU it would have been left with no currency-printing facilities in the European Union.

A De La Rue (Malta) source told this website:

“Most clients would request that their banknotes be printed within the European Union and according to certain security parameters which the Malta operation did not have. This means that De La Rue has to print these banknotes in the UK.

“With the UK set to pull out of the European Union, De La Rue now has no choice but to retain the Malta factory and invest in setting up those security parameters in Malta which it currently has in the UK, so as not to lose these particular clients.”