Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:00 pm on 10 October 2017.
The Member has addressed an issue there that is absolutely right. We have faced too many instances in the past where businesses that the Germans would describe as the Mittelstand businesses, the owners tended to sell rather than grow. It’s a problem we’ve had for years. We looked at one point at whether we could look to resurrect the Cardiff stock exchange to enable them to grow and then become listed. It wasn’t practical. That was something we looked at 10 or 11 years ago.
What can we do in the meantime to help them? We’ve got the Business Wales service, of course, which helps SMEs including medium-sized businesses, and the development bank of Wales will be a core component part of the Welsh Government’s economic policy and delivery to build on the expertise of Finance Wales. That will help SMEs to access finance. And the economic action plan will, undoubtedly, look to support businesses of all sizes. I think it’s fair to say that, 20 years ago, the emphasis was entirely on attracting overseas investment and nothing else. That’s what the Welsh Development Agency did. That’s no longer the case. We know how important that broad and strong pyramid of SMEs is, and Mittelstand businesses, if I can call them that, because they are the base of the Welsh economy, and we want to make sure that our offer helps to strengthen them as well.