It seems that it is finally here.
According to a survey from the British Chamber of Commerce, the UK is facing a serious risk of recession within months.
The focus of the Assembly's Economic Development Department must change immediately. In economic terms, Wales is on a war footing and for the first time, we have some autonomy over how we react to this recession thanks to devolution.
This is no longer about managing its usual economic priorities but about ensuring that the Welsh economy comes out of this situation better than other parts of the UK over the next couple of years. It is about survival, not growth; it is about consolidation, not expansion, and critically, it is about retaining highly skilled jobs rather than attracting new ones.
The warnings are clear. Let us hope that our politicians have the courage to act accordingly.
According to a survey from the British Chamber of Commerce, the UK is facing a serious risk of recession within months.
The focus of the Assembly's Economic Development Department must change immediately. In economic terms, Wales is on a war footing and for the first time, we have some autonomy over how we react to this recession thanks to devolution.
This is no longer about managing its usual economic priorities but about ensuring that the Welsh economy comes out of this situation better than other parts of the UK over the next couple of years. It is about survival, not growth; it is about consolidation, not expansion, and critically, it is about retaining highly skilled jobs rather than attracting new ones.
The warnings are clear. Let us hope that our politicians have the courage to act accordingly.
Comments
So for the last 7 months we could have been making plans to help our business community to best weather the recession.
Importantly at any given point in time businesses will be in difference situations, so for some it will still be appropriate to follow a growth strategy. This applies well to smaller businesses where growth can often be achieved by undertaking simple steps, for example by undtertaking search engine optimisation on a web site.
But at this time it would certainly seem appropriate to have a series of Assembly organised business events across Wales to give our business commnunity ideas, information and support to show them ways they can combat the recession.
At the most basic level such events would help to give businesses confidence to fight the recession.
The big shame is we didn't start planning to do this 7 months ago, and the bigger shame is that in 7 months time little or any practical actions will have been taken to help businesses during the recession.
I would hope to be proven wrong, but somehow I can only see Wales taking the full impact of the recession, simply because we seem incapable of recating quickly to changes in the economic climate.
We need action on fuel costs and business rates not yet more studies on impacts.
Several piling firms are currently either going into administration or laying off staff.
It's going to be a nasty one and could well be prolonged by the exponential rise in oil.
I suppose the politicians feel insulated from it all with their state salaries and inflation proof pensions, thinking their constituents are imagining their pain.
With the private sector in precarious state and government cutting discretionary spending Wales is vulnerable. After ten years of being responsible for economic development the WAG is about to be tested on its achievements.