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Two main factors helped the USA emerge from the Great Depression, where a hatred of the depredations wreaked by banks, especially in rural farming communities, was more than equal to that of Europe. These were US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal infrastructure programmes and the huge re-employment provided by an emerging military-industrial complex at the outset of WWII. Read the rest of this entry »

BUSINESSES in Wales have reported stronger growth in terms of turnover and gross profit over the last year than has the UK as a whole, according to research published today.

LABOUR MEP Derek Vaughan has called for greater collaboration between Welsh Assembly and UK Governments and their EU counterparts to safeguard and strengthen the future of Cardiff Airport.

THE company behind not-for- profit Welsh Water, Glas Cymru ,is seeking new members.

They say the simple ideas are sometimes the best ones and when it comes to simple ideas that make a real difference, the Irish are natural winners.

Last week, I came across what can only be described as pure genius, if Guinness will forgive me for using that phrase.

The Irish Government has recently launched a new Irish Innovation Centre which will be a launchpad for Irish technology companies as the Emerald Isle struggles to come out of recession. And where have they based it?

Is it in Dublin or Cork or Limerick?

No, they have opened it up in San Jose, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley.

As a result, Irish companies can now gain access to venture firms, bankers, customers, suppliers and employees in the World’s most innovative and entrepreneurial environment.

The centre also has access to the Irish Technology Leadership Group (ITLG), which provides companies access to a “built in” network of successful Silicon Valley business executives from global technology companies such as Cisco and Intel Logitech.

Irish high-technology firms will now have a bridgehead into the heart of the US innovation community not only through access to office space, but also high level consulting, advisory services and, significantly, access to the network of individuals in industry and academia within Silicon Valley.

Most importantly, with 40 per cent of the $18 billion of US venture capital invested in Silicon Valley, the new innovation centre is also a shop window for Irish technologists looking for potential investors. As the press release for its launch stated, “Young companies who want smart money should be coming here…this is not about real estate – it’s all about access to technology, capital and connections.”

As those behind the new venture have suggested, it is critical that nations like Ireland with a good technology base make better use of their diaspora overseas, in the same way that Israel does so effectively. As one said, “We’re not going to get 30 Googles but if we got one or two we’d be very happy. You know what? That’s fine, that’s what happens in Silicon Valley all the time.”

The Irish Innovation Centre is not the only way in which the Irish are building links with arguably the most innovative region in the World. Later this year, a group of executives from Silicon Valley technology companies are heading to Limerick for the third annual “Silicon Valley Comes to Ireland” event. As part of the event, Irish companies will be given an intensive review by the visiting entrepreneurs and an opportunity to showcase their ideas to leading venture capitalists.

The question is why is Wales not doing the same? Where is the “out of the box” thinking that can begin to make a real difference to our economy?

With Wales’ richest man, Mike Moritz, running Silicon Valley’s most successful venture capital firm, one would have thought that we would have taken advantage of this link by now, especially if we could find a way to highlight the best of Welsh innovation and technology.

Why doesn’t the Welsh Assembly Government, working in partnership with the university sector in Wales and some of our leading innovative companies, establish a Welsh Centre to showcase the most innovative technologies emerging from both academia and industry. Better still, why not brand it as our first Global Technium, and thus linking the centre to the network of incubators we have in Wales?

What have we got to lose by doing so?

At least it would show that we are able to take the best of Wales to the World. And imagine if we announced such a project during Ryder Cup week. It would echo around the globe  and demonstrate that we are serious about recreating the economic future of this nation.

Last Tuesday, the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) responded to the suggestion, by the Welsh Assembly Government press office, that they were fully supportive of the Economic Renewal Programme.

I reproduce the letter here with no further comment as I believe it is self-explanatory.

SIR – It was extremely interesting yet quite alarming to read the Welsh Assembly Government’s response to the Federation of Small Businesses’ call for more detail on transport spending priorities (“Small businesses blast WAG over roads-upgrade funding”, August 16).

The first alarming point was their assertion that we called on WAG to double the transport budget, which was a rather pathetic attempt at throwing a red herring. The quote “we need to double the current level of investment in road infrastructure just to match the spending of our European competitors in France and Germany” is clearly an indication of the scale of the issue, not an actual proposal.

Of course, in the absence of any detail to quote on what they are actually going to do, it is far easier to pick up on something else and turn that into an issue. But I’m afraid that all it has done is made them look idiotic.

The second point, however, is far more alarming. To say that we were consulted on the Economic Renewal Programme and therefore have no right to criticise any of its recommendations is breathtakingly arrogant.

The whole process has hardly been the model of engagement espoused by the Welsh Assembly Government. For example, the consultation document did not ask for specific policy questions regarding the reorganisation of the Department of Economy and Transport, and the resulting document “answered” questions that were simply not asked in the consultation process.

The ERP as it stands now should be going out to consultation, yet there is no formal way to respond, and no period of consultation. Such major change, such as scrapping Flexible Support for Business (FS4B), International Business Wales and the Single Investment Fund, should go out to consultation.

And where was the consultation when choosing the business sectors to focus on? This work was undertaken by the Ministerial Advisory Group, which appeared to work in a silo away from stakeholders. Where was the engagement with the wider business community when choosing the sectors which will benefit from the ERP?

So, against the background of all this scrapping of business structures in Wales, that we should have the very audacity to ask where the money will be focused in future is something the Welsh Assembly Government might, one would think, be prepared for. But it appears not.

Instead it gropes around for immature deflection techniques to straightforward propositions. And that is quite alarming.

JANET JONESChair, FSB Wales