PROFESSOR DYLAN JONES-EVANS

Earlier this week, the Scottish Government published a new National Strategy for Economic Transformation. This contains seventy actions across five key priority programmes which, following a detailed analysis of Scotland’s economic strengths and weaknesses, have been identified as having the greatest potential to deliver economic growth. Given that there is no similar economic strategy here in Wales, it provides an interesting framework for the Welsh Government to examine in terms of approach over the next four years. I was particularly excited to see that one of the key priority programmes will focus on entrepreneurship to create a culture which entrepreneurship is encouraged, supported and celebrated. To achieve this, it will focus on four key projects that will result in Scotland being recognised as one of the best countries in the world to start and grow a business, surely something that should be an ambition here in Wales as well. The first of these projects is that of embedding t...

The Oxford English Dictionary describes hypocrisy as “behaviour that does not meet the moral standards or match the opinions that somebody claims to have”.  Earlier this week, an excellent article by the Western Mail’s travel correspondent Rhodri Clark suggested that the Welsh Government’s recent behaviour in relation to its transport policy did not meet the moral standards or match its opinions on carbon emissions. Last June, the new Welsh Government announced that it would be freezing new road building projects as part of its plans to deal with the carbon emissions with an expert panel being appointed to review all road projects in Wales.  As a result, several road projects that had already been approved were cancelled, most notably the Llanbedr bypass in Snowdonia which was needed because of the serious congestion caused by tourists in the summer.  Yet, whilst smaller schemes have been scrapped because the Welsh Government wants to tackle climate change, it is continui...

This week, the long overdue Levelling Up White Paper was published by the UK Government. Weighing in at 332 pages, it is a substantial piece of work that puts forward the case for addressing the economic inequalities across the UK.  Naturally, some critics have already suggested that it long on ambition and short on the funding needed to achieve that ambition. Nevertheless, it must be applauded for at least getting this important issue front and centre when it comes to government policy and also on identifying a number of broad objectives to ensure a more equal distribution of economic prosperity in every part of the United Kingdom.  These include boosting productivity, pay, jobs and living standards by growing the private sector (especially in those places where they are lagging) as well as spreading opportunities and improve public services in the weakest regions. By adopting a bottom-up rather than the usual top-down approach, it also intends to restore a sense of community...

Just as we thought that 2021 would return to some sort of normality, reports of a new mutation of Covid emerging from South Africa changed all of that overnight and during the last few weeks, the so-called Omicron variant has spread like wildfire across the globe.  Fortunately, the initial data from those countries affected first suggests that whilst it is more infectious, it is a milder illness that largely resembles a common cold and, more importantly, the highly successful vaccination programme along with booster jabs has ensured higher levels of protection. Despite this, and largely because of the dearth of any real information about the variant at the time, governments around the World rushed to impose new restrictions which ranged from closing borders to restricting access to hospitality for unvaccinated citizens.  Here in the UK, a different approach was taken by each of the devolved nations and the UK Government with Wales imposing restrictions that some have argued ha...

Over the next few weeks as we approach the Senedd elections in May, many organisations will be putting forward ideas on how the next Welsh Government can make a difference to the nation. Given the importance of new and smaller businesses to the Welsh economy as we emerge out of the pandemic, our next group of politicians should read the recent proposals from Purple Shoots, a not-for-profit micro finance organisation that provides small business loans at fair rates. With an impressive track record over the last seven years, they have helped to fill a real gap in access to finance to the newest and smallest firms and, in doing so, have made a real difference to the ambitions of those from the poorest communities who want to start their own businesses. One of their suggestions is to divert one per cent of the £270m recently given to the Development Bank of Wales by the Welsh Government towards funding new microbusinesses employing less than ten people. Using their own success as an exampl...

Earlier this week, the Welsh Government published its Economic Resilience and Reconstruction Mission which sets out how it will work to rebuild Wales’ post COVID-19 economy. Like every economic strategy document, there are elements of good and bad policymaking within the document. For example, some of the actions on developing a greener economy, supporting innovation, improving digital skills, better public procurement and moves to support our high streets are to be welcomed.  But there are also considerable omissions on key issues which are critical to development of any economy, never mind that of Wales which is the poorest in the UK. For example, there is a total lack of focus on supporting entrepreneurship and new businesses. This is despite overwhelming evidence that new firms not only create the majority of new jobs in any economy but especially during a recession where large firms continue to shed hundreds of thousands of jobs.  And it’s not as if the Welsh Government h...

Last week, a fascinating economic outlook report was published by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) that focused not only on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic but also Brexit. In doing so, it delivered a sobering assessment of the future of the UK economy as well as the differing fortunes of the regional and devolved economies of the nation. As with many other forecasters, the increase in Covid-19 infections during the last few months has resulted in the NIESR revising its economic growth forecasts for this year, especially with the lockdown of the last couple of months having a bigger negative impact on the UK as compared to last November. As a result, the NIESR suggests that the UK economy will only grow by 3.4% in 2021 although a more rapid rollout of the vaccination programme, along with the lifting of lockdown measurers, could change this.  In addition, the sluggish response of the rest of the World in vaccinating their populations could result ...

With the majority of us still working from home during a dark and cold January, it may difficult to envisage that in less than one hundred days and barring any postponement from Cardiff Bay, we will be voting in the elections for the Welsh Senedd. As the political parties start to formulate their manifestos, various organisations, pressure groups and other bodies are putting together a list of their priorities that the next Welsh Government will hopefully enact as part of their programme. One of the most important of these submissions has come from the Welsh university sector that, during the last five years, has been responsible for developing world class research and innovation, delivered skills to people of all ages and backgrounds, and made a significant contribution to the economic and societal wellbeing of Wales. As the nation looks to recover from the challenges that we have all faced as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, higher education institutions are aiming to continue thi...

Earlier this week, there was yet another political row between Cardiff Bay and Westminster over additional funding that had supposedly been released to the devolved administrations as a result of new support for businesses in England.  Welsh ministers said that this was not new money at all whereas their equivalents at a UK level said that it formed part of funding that had been ‘advanced’ to the Welsh Government last year to enable them to provide support to businesses. Whatever the truth of the matter, it was disappointing to see the focus on all too prevalent ‘he said, she said’ that has come to dominate any discourse on who has done what to support businesses here in Wales. At a time when the vast majority of Welsh firms will be struggling as a result of the current lockdown, political point scoring should come a distant second to actually providing the support they need to survive until the vaccination process is completed in the next few months and the economy opens up again....

Back in late January, I was having a cup of tea with one of Wales’ leading businesspeople who had been keeping an eye on the emergence of a new flu-like virus that was spreading like wildfire through the Chinese city of Wuhan.  He showed me a video of people shouting from their locked apartment blocks in the middle of the night and suggested that this could be a serious situation that could get out of control quickly, advising me to buy some high-quality personal protection masks as soon as possible.  Of course, when I did and told friends and family, this naturally resulted in a lot of leg pulling at my over-reaction to something happening thousands of miles away that would never affect Wales.  Fast forward six weeks later and everyone was trying to get hold of facemasks as the whole of the world went into lockdown and nations faced the first serious global pandemic since the Spanish Flu outbreak in 1918. Since then, we have seen the country shut down, re-opened and now ...

The Welsh hospitality industry from tomorrow will be forced by the Welsh Government to shut from 6pm and will not be allowed to serve alcohol for the next two weeks. First Minister Mark Drakeford claims that this decision, which will see many bars and restaurants having to close as it just doesn’t make sense commercial sense to trade under such restrictions, was specifically made to stop the further spread of infection amongst the population in Wales. He said this was backed up by evidence from the Technical Advisory Cell (TAC) which advises the Welsh Government and the SAGE group of scientists which advises the UK Government. If studies clearly showed that the reopening of pubs, restaurants and cafes since the last firebreak was the direct cause of the subsequent increase in infection rates, then there would be no arguments whatsoever about this decision. Unfortunately, there seems to be no valid evidence from either TAC or SAGE to show this. For example, if we examine the most recent...

Last Monday, First Minister Mark Drakeford ordered a “firebreak” lockdown for two weeks to break the spread of coronavirus in Wales. This came into effect yesterday and will last until November 9th. As a result, people must work from home unless they are critical workers or cannot do their jobs from home and all gatherings with people outside households have been banned. Whilst primary schools will reopen after half term, secondary schools will shut for all but years seven and eight. For businesses, all non-essential retail, gyms, leisure centres, bars, restaurants and hospitality must close for this period. The rationale for this ‘sledgehammer’ approach of shutting everything down for just over a fortnight through a combination of different measures is that it is the only way to bring down the R rate (i.e. the average number a sick person could pass the virus onto) from its estimated current level of 1.2-1.4 to below 1.0 when the numbers of those infected start to fall. The scientific...

A cartoon published at the beginning of the Covid-19 shutdown showed a sad looking man standing at the Pearly Gates to heaven. St Peter is checking the ledger and looks up to the man stating  “Says here that you should be in hell but since you were in the events industry during coronavirus, we’ll count that as time served”. Not the best joke ever but the sentiments are real for anyone working in any events-oriented business during the last five months with social distancing rules having made any conference, business dinner or networking event impossible to undertake. This hiatus will have had a serious economic impact in the UK given that the overall events industry is estimated to be worth £70 billion in direct spend, accounting for over 50% of the UK visitor economy.  Whilst £39 billion of this comes from leisure (including arts and cultural events, music events and festivals) and sporting events, over £31 billion of the total is actually generated from business events, meet...

As businesses begin to open again and people go back to work, what has been the impact to date on the business community in Wales? According to the latest data from the ONS, there are considerable challenges facing the Welsh economy as we began the slow journey to recovery. For example, Wales has fewer businesses (87%) that are continuing to trade during this pandemic than any other region or nation of the UK with the West Midlands (93%) having the highest proportion of those still operating.  In addition, whilst Wales has the second lowest proportion of firms where overall turnover has decreased in the UK after Northern Ireland, it also has the highest level of businesses (18%) where turnover has decreased by more than 50%. This possibly suggest that more firms will be facing critical cashflow problems soon if their income does not improve. Over the last few months, there has been a higher dependency of Welsh businesses on government support with four out of five businesses in Wal...

As predicted, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced specific support last week for the tourism and hospitality industry that has been hardest hit by the shutdown caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.  This included cutting VAT to 5 per cent for food, accommodation and attraction  businesses and the unprecedented introduction of a half price discount on meals and non-alcoholic drinks every Monday to Wednesday in August. Many applauded Rishi Sunak for this bold move but, of course, these incentives will only benefit businesses that are open to paying customers and, unfortunately, that is not the currently the situation in Wales. However, the good news released yesterday lunchtime after desperate pleas from the tourism industry across Wales is that pubs, cafes, restaurants and bars can reopen indoors in Wales from 3rd August if coronavirus cases continue to fall.  The law enforcing the 2m social distancing rules will also be altered if other measures such as the installation ...

Despite the massive challenges caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, it seems that entrepreneurship remains alive and well within the Welsh economy. Take, for example, the Wales Start-Up Awards, which will be announcing its shortlist for 2020 next week.  The annual competition to find the best new firms in Wales had over 540 entries from every part of the nation - the highest in its five year history - with 40 per cent of these submitted by women-owned start-ups.  More importantly, there were some incredible businesses across all industries from traditional sectors such as business to business services, food and drink and construction, to emerging new areas such as cyber, fintech and mobile technologies.  Recognising the achievements of these new businesses is critical as research shows time and time again that it is newer and smaller businesses that create most of the employment as we come out of a recession.  In contrast (and as we have seen over the last few days), it ...