Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/341807
Events 40 Trade fair starts on Thursday The much awaited Fiera l-Kbira opens its doors this Thursday. The fair, which will be officially inaugu- rated by Her Excellency the Presi- dent of Malta will bring back the much missed family outing factor. Luke Gatt, Managing Director of Expo Events, organisers of il-Fiera l-Kbira, said that the company had invested in research which clearly showed that the general public pre- ferred the way the trade fair used to be held at Naxxar. The vast majority of respondents in- dicated the family outing factor as the one to attract them the most. The whole concept of il-Fiera il-Kbi- ra aims at generating the possibility of good deals from Malta's top brands while also providing a relaxed evening for visitors. "Montekristo Estates was an almost automatic choice, as it not only provid- ed us with a massive area, but also has various entertainment venues which will in fact be used" stated Gatt. The general public will have the op- portunity to stroll along the various beautiful pathways the venue has to offer and visit the stands of over 200 exhibitors, who noticed the potential of the fair and booked their place at il- Fiera l-Kbira in a matter of weeks. As we close in on the official open- ing, final preparations are currently underway at Montekristo Estates. The entry ticket will also allow the ticket holder to participate in a lottery through which one can win a brand new car. Random prizes will also be given out during the days of il-Fiera l-Kbira, dur- ing which one can also visit the Ani- mal Park, equestrian shows and enjoy other entertainment without any ad- ditional payment. To the delight of luna park lovers, the Fiera l-Kbira will also host a luna park within the same grounds as well as several relaxing venues and seven professionally managed food areas. Because of the large attendance be- ing expected, the organisers and the Police have drafted a traffic plan that will help in traffic flow. 6,000 parking spaces will also be made available dur- ing the fair. The Fiera l-Kbira will bring back the trade fair to its roots. The trade fair will be open from the 10 July till the 20 July between 6.30pm and 11pm at Montekristo Estates. Further information can be obtained from www.fierakbira.com and the offi- cial Facebook page (FieraKbira) The Local Councils of Pembroke, Sliema, Kirkop, Attard and Paola won recycling awards during the second annual GreenPak Lo- cal Council Awards organised by GreenPak Cooperative Society. These awards recognise the local councils that have distinguished themselves in waste recycling for the betterment of their locality. Three local councils were nomi- nated as finalists in each of the six categories as finalists. Pembroke Local Council won the 'Best Overall Performance' award for the second consecutive year with a 58% waste recovery rate, while the Sliema Local Council won the 'Most Supportive Locality' award. The awards 'Best Performance: Recycling Bag' and 'Best Perform- ance: Household Glass' where ad- judicated to the localities of Kirkop and Attard respectively. The Paola Local Council was awarded the 'Most Improved Locality' award, with 75% improvement in recycling terms. For the first time, Inspire Foun- dation initiated 'The Inspire Foun- dation Award' as a token of ap- preciation to those local councils participating in the used clothes collection campaign held in 2013. Of the many councils that participated in this event to raise money for the Inspire Foundation, the Kirkop resi- dents collected most used clothes and scooped their second award having given to charity an average of 4kgs of clothes per household. More than 100 local council may- ors, executive secretaries and coun- cillors attended the award ceremo- ny. The Minister for Sustainable Development, the Environment and Climate Change Leo Brincat and the Parliamentary Secretary for Lo- cal Government Stefan Buontempo congratulated the local councils and encouraged them to keep im- proving on these results in order to reach Malta's recycling targets set out by the EU. Ing. Mario Schembri, GreenPak Coop Society CEO, said, "With more local councils joining the Green- Pak scheme each month the Local Council Awards are becoming more challenging. This effectively means that the award is continuously gain- ing prestige. We encourage this kind of well-meaning competitiveness as the net result will see Malta benefit- ting from a better environment and improved recycling rates." Besides receiving the trophy and certificate of achievement, the win- ning local councils were each given a cash prize of €1,000 to support on- going environmental projects with- in the same locality for the benefit of its residents. GreenPak, a MEPA authorised scheme, is the largest waste recov- ery scheme in Malta. The organisa- tion is a founding member of EX- PRA, a not-for-profit international organisation promoting the concept that it is industry itself that should take up recycling and let recycling be a burden on Government or Lo- cal Authorities. GreenPak has for the past decade been one of 35 na- tional producer responsibility sys- tems operating under the PRO Eu- rope umbrella. Malta's First Solar Farm was launched by Hon. Prime Minister Joseph Muscat at Medserv, at the Malta Freeport. "Medserv is in the energy business and this diversification into renewa- ble energy complements our diversi- fication plans and allows us to max- imise the return on our assets. We have loads of roof space here that is now providing us with a new source of income," said Anthony Diacono, Chairman at Medserv Group The solar farm, a first for Malta, shall be generating 2.01 MWp of en- ergy, produced to the national grid. 8000 Photovoltaic panels have been installed over an area of 20,640 sq metres, 12 kms of cable, 6 inverters, and a new substation with the neces- sary switchgear needed to handle the energy produced. The system will be saving over 3100 tonnes of Carbon emissions a year, the equivalent of 520,000 trees. "The selection of the right equip- ment and the right contractor to handle this installation was vital. The decision was made to go for German technology and we selected Conergy. As Malta's representative for Conergy, ElectroFix were en- trusted with the installation of the whole system. "The other main contractors en- gaged were Ellul Brothers for the civ- il works and Kamoy Engineering for the steel structures. I would like to take this opportunity to thank them, as well as our team headed by our COO, Godwin Borg, for their hard work and commitment to get this project off the ground on time and to budget." added Mr Diacono. Medserv's core business is the provision of integrated logistic sup- port services - specialists in the oil and gas industry. With 40 years of experience, the Group presently has facilities in Malta, Libya and more recently Cyprus where the Group's base in Larnaca has recently begun operations on the 3 year, multi-mil- lion contract awarded to Medserv by ENI. www.medservmalta.com Princess Juliana International Air- port (SXM), on the Caribbean Island of St Maarten, is the latest airport to implement Shireburn's Concession- aire Analyzer+ software solution that will enable them to better manage and boost airport non-aeronautical revenues. Such income is today a topical subject within the industry as more airports continue to depend on it for profitable operation. Two members of the Shireburn Implementation and Support Team, Jonathan Cassar and Terence Vas- sallo, have in fact just completed the initial airport staff training on site in St Maarten. " We are very proud to be working with SXM, a leader in its region with an average of 1.6 million passengers passing though it yearly" said John de Giorgio, Managing Director of Shire- burn Software. "Shireburn continues to gain ground internationally with its unique CA+ product." Shireburn continues to promote CA+ and has also recently returned from exhibiting its solution at the ACI Annual General Assembly in Seoul, Korea, and was earlier this year exhibiting in Barcelona and Zurich. With increasingly growing interest for the solution amongst airport ex- ecutives, Shireburn plans to continue to expose their solution to more air- ports in the second half of 2014, in particular exhibiting in Atlanta, USA in September, Paris at Airport Exchange in November and at the ACI Latin America event in Cancun, Mexico. CA+ automates the collection of sales data from airport concessions, enables analysis of sales patterns and business intelligence through its BI platform and revenue/billing of con- cessions. SXM will be able to better understand sales patterns with the aim of maximising performance, while improving control and audit- ing of this crucial function. SXM will also be utilising the con- tract management, revenue calcula- tion and billing automation func- tions of CA+. And whilst some concessionaires are retaining their current point- of-sale and back-office systems uti- lising an interface that integrates automatically with CA+, other con- cessionaires will be implementing Shireburn's own Airport.POS as a standard point-of-sale solution, al- lowing real-time transaction level integration with boarding pass scan- ning for deeper data collection and analysis. "Through the implementation of CA+, our commercial team will be able to closely monitor sales pat- terns, identify category performance, benchmark concessions and more quickly identify trends in order to ultimately improve our non-aero- nautical revenues as a percentage of total revenues." said Regina LaBega, Managing Director at SXM. "We will also be able to better control our op- erations." The recent move to SkyParks Busi- ness Centre and the continuous ex- pansion of the team allows Shireburn to continue to provide innovative so- lutions for both the local market as well as the growing overseas arena. maltatoday, Sunday, 6 July 2014 GreenPak hosts the 2014 Local Council Awards Malta's first solar farm launched at Medserv Shireburn Software implements its airport solution in St Maarten, Caribbean Winners of the second edition of the GreenPak Local Council Awards 2014. From left: Paola Mayor Roderick Spiteri, Pembroke Mayor Dean Hili, Kirkop Mayor Carmel Calleja, Parliamentary Secretary for Culture and Local Government Stefan Buontempo, Minister for Sustainable Development, the Environment and Climate Change Leo Brincat, GreenPak Coop Society CEO Ing Mario Schembri, Sliema Councillor Paul Radmilli and Attard Executive Secretary Marica Mifsud