I commend the Minister for taking a close personal interest in selling Wales abroad. I think that’s a very, very important role for the Cabinet Secretary. I would think, though, that alongside activity, of course, we need strategy, and I was interested to hear his comments just now drilling down a little bit into the fairly serious decline in our export position overall that we’ve seen consistently since 2013—about a £2.6 billion reduction in the total volume of exports. It would be useful, I think, if he would be willing to share with the Assembly the analysis that he’s alluded to there. I think the energy side of it is certainly absolutely borne out by the figures, but there are other areas—manufactured goods classified chiefly by material and miscellaneous manufactured articles—as well that show a similar trend of decline over the last year, and there are particular countries—the Irish Republic, for instance, were down 30 per cent over the last year. And I think it would be useful if we had a more in-depth analysis of what has driven this fall in our export position.

I would say to him—again, he won’t be surprised by this—that almost every country in the world has a specialist trade promotion body, and, indeed, when it was recently mooted that UKTI—which he has been very complimentary about, I think, and works closely with the Welsh Government—were going to maybe be abolished, merged, downgraded et cetera, then I think the Welsh Government wouldn’t have supported that, because the evidence from across the world is that having a trade promotion body is an important part in the armoury of any nation. Unfortunately, and this isn’t in any way to decry the best efforts of himself or indeed civil servants, all the evidence that shows why Governments have them is that having a specialist trade promotion body with offices right across the world is an important tool in driving forward the exports success that we’d all like to see.

Finally, could I just ask him, seeing as he was in Osaka: did he have the opportunity to see the sight of the world expo of 1970 that was such an important part of the economic development success of that particular region of Japan, so much so, of course, that they’re bidding for it again in 2025, because they see an expo as the best shop window possible for exports, telling the world, as we are oft as politicians to say, ‘We are open for business’? Would he at least consider looking at the possible benefits and costs of a Welsh bid, so that we’re actually competing there with Osaka and all the other cities and regions and nations in the world?