Omar Cutajar is currently the Research & Innovation Attaché at the Permanent Representation of Malta to the EU. Previously he worked as EU Affairs Manager of the Malta Business Bureau – the joint EU advisory office of the Malta Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Malta Hotels & Restaurants Association. He acted as the Manager of Malta Business Bureau’s, Brussels Representation Office for 7 years as from January 2009 till the beginning of 2015.
His expertise in entrepreneurship education is directly linked to the joint EU advisory office of the Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry and the Malta Hotels & Restaurants Association. He is in charge of the EU policy coordination on single market, competition and trade matters with a focus on SMEs and on providing policy analysis on how EU pipeline aquis affects the competitiveness of Maltese businesses. On entrepreneurship education, He is responsible for providing advice and information sign-posting guidance to Maltese start-up firms on the mentoring and coaching services available through national support schemes and reviewing the companies’ draft application forms for aid support. Mr Cutajar is also responsible for designing, coordinating and managing on an ad hoc basis sector-specific mentoring programmes for Maltese businesses on EU regulatory compliance obligations, with the most recent mentoring session dealing with food labelling and allergen disclosure obligations emanating from the EU Regulation 1169/2011.
In 2011, he took part in in an entrepreneurship project on behalf of DG Enterprise entitled “EuroEntreCases” commissioned to the Dublin Institute of Technology, where he was responsible for drafting a Malta case-study tracking the business development cycle of the Café Jubilee Group of Companies (www.cafejubilee.com). The case-study also had the purpose of eliciting and highlighting best practices in entrepreneurship development.