Building capacity has been a key objective. Big Ideas Wales, which encourages entrepreneurship from an early stage and develops the entrepreneurial skills of young people, has delivered, in my view, outstanding results, with 70 per cent of young people under the age of 25 now having aspirations to work for themselves. And 375 role models have engaged with more than 56,000 young people in 86 per cent of schools, further education colleges and higher education institutions.

I do think that we need to celebrate the successes of young people in business. We have some excellent examples of the practical ways that we do this, through competitions and also through boot camps. Capacity building of this type complements our drive to encourage graduate start-ups. More broadly, the recent winners of the Fast Growth 50 showcased the talent and opportunity that we have in our country. 

It's encouraging to see that we now have a record number of active businesses in Wales, and the number of new business births is the highest for over a decade. Small and medium-sized businesses in Wales account for 99.3 per cent of enterprises in our country, 62 per cent of employment and 39.7 per cent of turnover. To grow, Welsh businesses must evolve and to evolve, they must innovate. Government, academia and providers of finance are all part of that ecosystem. That's why I've supported Be The Spark, a new national initiative to drive innovation and entrepreneurship here in Wales. The approach has been developed by a high-calibre panel, chaired by Simon Gibson, and has resulted from Wales's participation in the regional entrepreneurship acceleration programme at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It's estimated that the MIT alumni and the Boston ecosystem combined would equate to the twelfth biggest economy on the planet. Be The Spark is a strategy specifically for Wales that makes innovation-driven entrepreneurship the responsibility of all stakeholders, not just Government, but also financiers, larger corporates, academia and entrepreneurs, and Be The Spark has examined key metrics to outline the challenges for Wales. 

Whilst some of these will undoubtedly be challenging, I want to embrace the corresponding opportunity and set an ambition of where we need to be, and it's here. We need to address lower than UK start-up rates, from the current 60 per 10,000 to 120 per 10,000. The UK rate at present stands at 93 per 10,000. We also need to proportionally increase patent activity from 3.3 per cent to 5 per cent. We need to encourage an active and diverse angel investment community. It's a fact that Wales currently receives under 1.1 per cent of UK angel investment. We also need to increase the HE graduate start-up levels from 0.3 per cent of the student population to 1 per cent. That would lead to an extra 1,000 new starts every year. Extend this target still further to students currently in higher education, and we could deliver another 1,000 new starts. That's close to a 1 per cent increase in the business stock in our country. We also need to increase the proportion of growth firms in Wales from 19 per cent to 30 per cent classified as growing. And, finally, we need to increase the level of industry research and development expenditure, delivered in collaboration with higher and further education.

Deputy Presiding Officer, we need to harness the power and influence of all stakeholder groups and move forward with a shared objective. It should be a shared objective across Government, across education and businesses, and I do think that a prime example of this in action is the Welsh Government's £20 million investment in the Deeside advanced manufacturing research institute, which targets the need to focus on commercialisation, unlocked by all stakeholders working together. But as a Government, we don't have all of the solutions ourselves. Entrepreneurs and corporate leaders, those working in risk capital, as well as key people from academia and Government, need to work together to make this happen, and Be The Spark has to be the key driver for innovation-driven entrepreneurship here in Wales.

As part of this collaborative approach, I am delighted to note that NatWest has agreed two-year funding for the chief executive officer of Be The Spark, Caroline Thompson. Entrepreneurs are imperative for developing a strong economy and creating better jobs and supporting investment. We need to encourage entrepreneurship from an early age, through raising aspirations and understanding of entrepreneurship. The entrepreneurial mindset has benefits for those who not only start a business but also enter employment. There's an identified key challenge for our larger businesses where intra-preneurship is an essential ingredient in improving productivity through innovation.

Business Wales is the recognised service for entrepreneurs here in Wales. It provides support for aspiring entrepreneurs, start-ups and existing microbusinesses and small and medium-sized enterprises through a variety of channels, including online, on the phone and through dedicated business advisers located across the length and breadth of our country. I highlighted earlier the importance of the Business Wales service here in Wales.