A level playing field is essential to ensure that businesses can continue investing and creating jobs

During a visit to furniture company Bond’s Ltd, PN Leader Alex Borg says the Opposition understands the challenges faced by companies importing goods for the local market and will work to address realities including labour shortages and unfair competition

The Partit Nazzjonalista understands the challenges facing companies, including those that import products from overseas for sale on the local market, and wants to ensure that Malta provides the right environment for such businesses to continue investing and expanding.

This was stated by Leader of the Opposition and of the Partit Nazzjonalista Alex Borg this morning during a visit to Bond’s Ltd, where he met the owners and directors of the well-known furniture company, as well as its employees.

Alex Borg was welcomed by Alex Aquilina and his son Lee, who took him around the company’s three-storey, 1,200-square-metre showroom in Attard and introduced him to a number of its 22 employees, the majority of whom are Maltese, working across its various departments.

The furniture company, a family business now run by the third generation of the Aquilina family, began as a household goods shop bearing the same name, opened by Alex Aquilina’s father in Sliema in 1964. Over time, it developed into an established local company importing furniture from Italy for the Maltese market.

After Alex Aquilina opened a DIY shop in the early 1990s, and as Malta began its journey towards European Union membership and the import market opened up, he invested in expanding and diversifying the business. His children, Lee and Gail, later joined him, and today they run the complex, which sells a wide range of quality furniture for the local market, including kitchens, bedrooms, living-room furniture and other household furnishings from several established Italian brands.

These include Colombini Casa, Febal Casa, Materassi e Materassi and the paint brand OIKOS. Since 2014, the Maltese company has been ranked almost every year as the best annual performer among all the companies selling these Italian brands across Europe.

The company’s owners explained to Alex Borg that, following the various investment projects undertaken over the years to expand the business, they are now exploring a new niche: the contract furniture market for hotels and tourism establishments.

Alex and Lee Aquilina thanked the Leader of the Opposition for his visit and said that visits of this kind allow business owners to explain to politicians the challenges and problems they face, as well as the opportunities available to them. They said that their discussions with Alex Borg focused on improvements that could make the day-to-day realities of running their business easier and enable companies such as theirs to invest further. This would ultimately benefit not only the companies themselves and their employees, but also their customers.

For his part, the PN Leader said that visits of this kind help the Opposition better understand the challenges facing businesses that import products from overseas, including labour shortages and unfair competition from other imported products, particularly in relation to parallel trading.

Alex Borg said these realities must be addressed and that the Opposition is committed to working towards a level playing field in Malta, ensuring that companies such as Bond’s can grow, invest and create more jobs for Maltese and Gozitan workers.

During the visit to the company’s showroom in Attard, the PN Leader was accompanied by PN MPs Graziella Galea and Justin Schembri.

05.08.2026