Yes. Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'd like to thank David Rowlands for bringing this short debate forward, and I very much welcome this opportunity to respond. I'll focus, if I may, on those areas where the Welsh Government has the best opportunities to influence our future economic prospects.

As Members in this Chamber are clearly aware, the UK is now in a transition period until December 2020, and the transition period was agreed to allow the UK and the EU to agree on a deal on their future relationship. During this period, the majority of the current EU rules and trading arrangements remain in place, with no significant changes in most areas. The current rules on trading with the EU will remain, as will the right to travel without visas to other EU countries. Negotiations with the EU will doubtless have a real impact on people's jobs and living standards and our ability to attract investment. We need an outcome that doesn't unnecessarily damage Wales but, in fact, benefits Wales.

The Government has worked hard on enabling Wales to be one of the fastest growing parts of the UK since the 2008 recession, with the highest business birth rate of the four UK nations, a record number of businesses in existence, and the employment rate in Wales has now reached a record high of 76.2 per cent. Unemployment, as Members are aware, is at a record low level of just 2.9 per cent. As an emerging tech region, Wales also has the fastest growing digital economy outside of London. And as David Rowlands observed—and I am grateful to him for doing so—Aston Martin Lagonda was hard fought for but secured by the Welsh Government, along with other businesses such as INEOS Automotive and CAF. And we will go on attracting high-quality jobs to Wales, just as we are intensifying our efforts to grow our own businesses here in Wales. 

We continue to be proactive in our actions in a number of areas to support the economy now during the transition period and beyond, and we will continue to do more. Our economic action plan focuses on wealth and well-being and on the importance of place, alongside business, people and infrastructure as economic drivers. This move towards more socially responsible business and inclusive growth is narrowing inequalities across our country, but that work must continue.

We're also focusing our energy on our emerging industries that will thrive in Wales in the future—industries including high-value manufacturing, like compound semiconductors, services like fintech, cyber security and green energy. And we're in the process of developing a new manufacturing manifesto to demonstrate how we will futureproof this industry. We'll continue to invest and support the foundation economy, which delivers the goods and services that serve our everyday needs. Members will be aware that I established a foundational economy challenge fund, which we increased to £4.5 million after listening to businesses and entrepreneurs, and this fund is supporting more than 50 innovative projects across Wales and working to spread the benefits of local spending in the local economy. We'll work with these businesses to spread good practice and to ensure that learning is spread across the country, and this learning will help us to change and improve the way that the foundational economy works.

The Development Bank of Wales was set up to provide access to finance to help our businesses in Wales to prosper, and it is now managing more than £500 million of support for businesses, helping entrepreneurs to thrive. I know that it is something, again, that David Rowlands supports, and I'm grateful for that. Our Business Wales service has helped to create more than 1,040 new enterprises during 2018 alone, and a recent investigation into the impact of this service found that the four-year survivability rate for core and growth-assisted businesses is 85 per cent compared to just 41 per cent for a match sample of non-assisted businesses. That really does demonstrate the value of Business Wales in terms of ensuring that businesses survive a key time in their existence. It's also the case that these businesses are more likely to be in the stable and secure credit risk category than their non-supported counterparts in the wider population group of Welsh businesses.

Now, new challenges like the rapid development of technology, which is fundamentally changing the way that we work, the impact of climate change, which is focusing us towards a more socially responsible way of working, and, of course, a shift of global economic power towards the E7, which will impact on our future trading relationships, are challenges alongside those that could be presented by the UK leaving the EU. That is not the only show in town, and so, we as a Welsh Government will continue to work hard to support the Welsh economy through this period of instability owing to various factors and this period of dramatic change, and we are doing everything in our power to make sure that Wales is a place where everyone can prosper and thrive, and to improve our country for future generations.