Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for International Relations and Welsh Language – in the Senedd at 2:43 pm on 5 February 2020.

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Photo of Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Labour 2:43, 5 February 2020

Thank you very much. As it happens, this morning, I have had a meeting, along with my colleague, to talk about how we can bind the cultural and sporting assets that we have in Wales and we can use those to promote Wales internationally. So, that was an important meeting. 

Part of what we're trying to do is to see how we can really work as team Wales and to build and work from each other. Certainly, the Football Association of Wales let us know today that they're very open to working with us in relation to the European cup. I think we'll probably, if we're honest, have more interest in promoting ourselves in Italy than we would in Azerbaijan, so we've got to work out what is the best way to do that. It was interesting to have a discussion on the weekend with the British ambassador to Italy, who happens to be Welsh, who is very, very keen to help us. So, we'll be working up a programme now, hopefully similar to what we did in Japan.

On top of that, one of the examples that was given this morning is that the National Museum Wales are hoping to do an exhibition in Japan in 2022, and I think that's what we need to be looking at: what is the long-term framework that we can be looking at? The Welsh National Opera work about three years out. If we know that, can we build a trade mission around that? So, it's about how we can get the best for team Wales, but that needs a bit of co-ordination and that's what we were starting to thrash out this morning. 

And just in terms of inviting people here, the Japanese ambassador is coming to Wales very shortly but, on top of that, one of the projects we have organised this year is we're inviting ambassadors to Hay-on-Wye for the literature festival. So, that's going to be our first attempt to bring ambassadors here for a cultural event, where we'll have an opportunity to sell Wales on the back of that. It's probably worth just mentioning also that the German ambassador is coming to Wales next week, and that is a really important visit for us in terms of really underlining the fact that Germany is our key export market.