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When will it end?

Another 150 well-paid manufacturing jobs going at Flexsys in Wrexham which, according to the Daily Post, is down to the strength of the Chinese economy.

We could be in for a very difficult year unless the Assembly Government starts thinking seriously on how it is going to retain quality employment in Wales.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Great oxymoron “ Assembly Government and serious thinking” . From what I can see the only serious thinking that has gone on in WAG is how they make sure WEFO puts as much of this round of Convergence funding as possible through Assembly sponsored projects. Still I suppose washing it through WAG will help them with their budget issues, does not do a lot for Welsh SME’s though. Following 18 months of encouraging the private sector to put forward project ideas and become involved in this round of European programmes WEFO has finally released its definition of who/what constitutes a Project Sponsor and basically said “thank you but no thank you” to the private sector. In my view WEFO and WAG suffer from SARS, not the Asian flu variety but - State Aid Rules Syndrome. Hey what the hell the programme will be finished by the time they get anything rolling so they won’t have drawn down on anything so no fear of violating state aid and no worry about having to give anything back!
May 25, 2008 7:42 pm
Anonymous said…
A great comment. I think the politicians are completely unaware of what is going with WEFO, where you have low level officials making decisions over millions of pounds of public money and making it up as they go along. WAG projects are being fully funded without question whilst those from the private sectors and universities are being cut back or rejected. It is an abolsute mess and makes the Objective 1 problems of 2000-2002 pale in comparison.

Of course, the press in Wales don't give a monkey's about this at all and don't hold your breath for a Dragon's Eye investigation (another oxymoron)
May 25, 2008 8:30 pm
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