TAKING THE BEST OF WALES TO THE WORLD

Last week, I wrote about how Wales had experienced a decline in the number of new businesses since the Entrepreneurship Action Plan and the Welsh Development Agency were abolished four years ago.

Whilst entrepreneurship is critical in developing a coherent economic strategy, it is not the only solution for the problems facing the Welsh economy.

In an increasingly globalised economy, Wales cannot be isolated from what is going on in the rest of the world and it is critical that the right level of commitment and resources are in place to support international business activities.

However, it would seem that, as with entrepreneurship policy, there has been a major cut in the level of support provided by the Welsh Assembly Government to attract business into Wales as well as increasing the country’s exports and promoting Welsh business abroad.

A recent review into the activities of International Business Wales (IBW) showed that since 2005, staffing has been reduced from about 200 to 137 - a cut of 32 per cent.

At a time when it was critical to develop new markets, thirteen staff were lost at IBW’s ‘frontline’ offices, the inward investment presentations team in Cardiff has been closed down and there has been a significant downsizing of the inward investment research and analysis team. There has also been a reduction in IBW’s annual budget of 31 per cent since 2005, equivalent to £7.3 million every year, with a reduction of nearly £2 million per annum in the vital area of marketing, lead generation and support.

Therefore, IBW has had to do the job it did five years ago with roughly a third less of the resources. Despite this, IBW has managed to bring the same number of jobs into Wales in 2009 as it did in 2005 i.e. 6.2 per cent of the UK figure for new jobs from inward investment projects.

On the positive side, IBW has done exactly what would be expected of it under such conditions, namely deliver the same results with a vastly reduced budget. However, one can only speculate how many more jobs could have been created if the budget had not been reduced by WAG during this period.

Of course, it is not only up to WAG to promote overseas investment both to and from Wales. Last week, I spent seven days in Hong Kong cementing the University of Wales’ growing relationship with some of the major academic institutions in Hong Kong.

These included the University of Hong Kong (ranked 24th in the world), Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (ranked 35th) and the Chinese University of Hong Kong (ranked 42nd).

Indeed, the Chinese University link was of particular relevance because of its expertise in optoelectronics, one of the key high technology clusters in the Welsh economy. Only this week, their former Vice Chancellor, Professor Charles Kao, was awarded with the Nobel Prize for Physics, joining three other Chinese University academics that have been honoured by the Nobel Academy.

At the same time as I was in Hong Kong, my colleague was in the USA reaffirming our relationship with MIT (one of the top universities in the world) and, more importantly, establishing links with other global higher education players for the benefit of Welsh business.

Indeed, every time I travel around the world to talk about the strengths of our ‘small clever nation’, the reaction is always positive and in a world where collaboration is quickly becoming the norm, even the top universities and companies have realised that they cannot work in isolation.

Given this, it is time for WAG to reaffirm its commitment to ensuring that Wales punches well above its weight on the world stage. If the government rhetoric about ‘Team Wales’ is to be turned into reality, we must look to commit significant resources to create collaborative agreements at the highest levels throughout the world to benefit the Welsh economy.

One way to do this would be to send out ‘super trade missions’ every three months which comprise of a delegation of the best of Welsh business, government and academia to sell Wales to the world.

From WAG, this should include either the First Minister or the Deputy First Minister and top Cardiff Bay mandarins including the Permanent Secretary. They should be accompanied by and the leaders of our most innovative businesses, and vice-chancellors or senior academics from the Welsh university sector. This would ensure that any such mission would have the highest impact in a short space of time.

And yes, this super delegation should fly business class to whichever destination they go to in the world as the last thing I would want to see is Wales pitching against larger and better resourced countries with a team that is jetlagged and distracted when it arrives.

The great parliamentarian Oliver Cromwell once said that instead of striking while the iron is hot, you should make the iron hot by striking it. With the global economy emerging out of recession, we simply cannot wait for opportunities to emerge for the Welsh economy as we will inevitably be overtaken by bigger and better resourced competitors.

Instead, we must go out to and create opportunities through collaboration with willing global partners and ensure that we not only bring the best companies here to Wales to invest but, more importantly, that we take the best of Wales to the rest of the world.