Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:01 pm on 16 May 2017.
Carwyn Jones
Labour
2:01,
16 May 2017
Where was his party when, for four years, his party actually was in charge of economic development in Wales? He conveniently forgets that, of course. [Interruption.] They don’t like hearing that, because it’s something that they’d rather forget about, but it’s conveniently forgotten about. Well, he asked new ideas. The Valleys taskforce is moving forward with new ideas for the Valleys. We’re looking at how we develop ourselves in terms of international presence, again, because we know that we have to look outside, to new countries, for investment. The air link to Qatar is a hugely important part of developing our window onto the world. We’ve seen unemployment come down to a level lower than England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and major investment such as Aston Martin, such as General Dynamics and such as Tenneco coming to Wales.
The next challenge, of course, is to improve GVA. He is correct about that, but, certainly, as far as job creation is concerned, as far as reaching out to the world is concerned, as far as getting investment—having had the best foreign investment figures for 30 years last year—this Welsh Government is delivering.
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