Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for International Relations and Welsh Language – in the Senedd at 2:30 pm on 22 May 2019.

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Photo of Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Labour 2:30, 22 May 2019

Thank you. Well, clearly, we have an ambition to increase inward investment, and that is difficult when investors don't know what that relationship with our largest market—500 million people—will be in the future. So, I think there is a break in terms of investment, although, if you look at the absolute figures, we are actually performing very well at the moment. But if you look at why people traditionally have come here, then, yes, they have come here as a launch pad, very often, to get access to that market of 500 million people. That's why we are slightly shifting our emphasis at the moment to really focus on exports, because that is significant; we've seen significant growth in that area in the past couple of years. So, we want to do more in that space. But also, what we'll be doing is to concentrate on those areas relating to inward investment that will not be impacted in quite such a significant way by Brexit. So, we need to take that into consideration when we look for where we are looking to focus in the new international strategy.