How do we make Wales prosperous? By finally playing to our strengths

I agree, Wales appears to be heading out to sea with no one at the rudder. Farmers do need a better deal to produce food or they just sell out to solar farms. Then we have to import our food and that requires burning fossil fuel to transport them here. Nuclear sounds like the dream until you have to bury the waste. Where do we bury the waste? Sellafield is full.

Look at Quebec, Belgium and Switzerland in 1990s - their governments resource shared, same sovereign wealth funds (built through property acquisitions near where Air Canada / Air Transat / Sabena / Swissair created new routes), strong focus on professional services jobs (WSP, AtkinsRealis, NATO and United Nations offices); but more importantly Switzerland had financial services seminars / conferences in Winter months and Quebec had International Air Transport Association route planning conferences November to March in Casino de Montreal (next to Gran Prix circuit that was used in summer only). None of those countries focus on the latest transport type such as driverless cars or high speed trains. None of them have wasted billions on sports events such as Olympic Games. 2025 saw TfWs first transport conference in Wrexham and an Investment summit in ICC. Wales has excellent Universities, technology has enabled a work from anywhere culture to thrive and we need to focus not on competing with Dublin (organisations based there to benefit from lower rates of corporation taxes) but growing Welsh Organisations. If Iceland Foods sold frozen Laverbread / fish caught from Pembrokeshire then the the overall economy would grow. Could the Celtic Collection buy a hotel on Blaenavon? https://nation.cymru/news/iconic-hotel-at-heart-of-its-community-set-to-close-in-2026/

Switzerland owes its small country success to a corporation tax structure that varies by canton and municipality.

Some interesting points here, but shouldn't there be a declaration of interest somewhere noting that Franck Banza was a Lib Dem candidate in the last General Election? And why does the expensive, dangerous, toxic technology behind nuclear power have to be part of the energy solution? Look the Lib Dems' page on "environment" and you will see that nuclear is not mentioned.

Face the facts Wales will never be prosperous until we are an independent nation and from under the English boot on our throats we are just treated as a colony of the old English empire

Is Franck still a Lib Dem Senedd candidate? He was announced, but now doesn't appear on candidate lists.

Totally agree with all the points made, it's hard not to. For far too many years, the default position from Welsh Government has been akin to a coping strategy combined with an embedded view amongst the civil service and it's legal advisors of a primary function being to 'protect minister' as opposed to enacting policy. So despite the almost endless flow of words, found in imaginative policies and brave statements that seek to define the socio-political and economic landscape, what we find instead is a consistently underperforming economy, a degraded environment and record levels of absolute child poverty. Mediocrity reigns supreme. But it doesn't have to and it shouldn't One further distinction common in many of the small successful economies and strong in the context of Wales is bilingualism and the doorway that provides to multilingualism. The lack of focus, and often interest, from schoolchildren in utilising this innate distinction to pursue modern languages in Wales particularly, is one of the biggest self inflicted head slaps going. Here's hoping that we all decide that Wales can have a better future in 2026

There are some fair points here (but also quite a few rather vague concepts). However, there is one glaring omission. Roughly two thirds of jobs in Wales are provided for by small and medium sized businesses. Wales needs to support these entrepreneurs.

It’s a nice article but not breathing anything new and mostly rhetoric. You point to LG, Aston Martin - but some FDI has been very successful – JCB, Toyota, Kellogg’s etc etc with thousands of jobs supported. Tidal energy has been trialled all around the world and unproven/expensive, with better options. Nuclear is being done but takes decades to implement. Cheap energy ‘does not make things more productive’; sometimes the opposite - plus the most productive parts of the UK economy don’t use high volumes of electicity. We’ve tried the film hubs, and roads, air travel and high-speed internet requires money. “We should aspire to be the best version of Wales.:” no idea what that even means.   If I was to recommend changes; introduced a flat income tax, corporate profits not taxed if reinvested, create a very business-friendly environment (encourages entrepreneurship and foreign investment).Become a digital state. Educate with a tech focus; strong emphasis on math, science, coding, programming/AI taught early in schools (about only thing I agree with). This can produced skilled workers for IT and startups and companies like Skype  to emerge. Joinging the EU and euro would help though politically unfeasible. Oh and massive sacrifices needed on pensions, benefits. Not my idea; basically follow the Estonia roadmap

we should be radical on tax. lower the top rate tax rate by a few points to differentiate versus england. reduce tax for under 25s and raise it for over 60s make wales a place attractive for workers.

A decent piece but the glaring omission is business. Both in terms of SMEs and attracting big companies to Wales. Radical ideas such as slashing corp tax should be given a try as this underpins everything.

By decolonizing the economy...

Wales is being stolen from while simultaneously having our hands tied behind our backs financially. The British occupiers are purposely stopping us from thriving. If this was a relationship it would be the abusive kind. Wales will never thrive without independence to make our own decisions. Wales will never thrive while it's being systematically abused and looted.

Just saying this article has a lot of short paragraphs, bullet points and em dashes.

It suits Westminster and the WG to keep the population poorly educated and thick so they can pull the wool over the eyes of the gullible.

There are some fundamental problems with farming and it's mostly down to free trade with Europe and other countries. This is the one situation where I think Trump has a point, even if he has gone over the top somewhat. Tariffs. It is not possible for Wales to compete in terms of food. Whether that's locally produced lamb (cheaper to import similar quality from the other side of the world), wheat (Ukraine, America), apples (Kent/EU) etc. It's also something Wales has zero control over. Instead, Farmers have environmental considerations, pressures from social movements (veganism, not criticizing but it is a problem for say dairy farmers), production costs, employment costs, employment accessibility... Honestly it's a wonder how farming has survived in Wales. Of course part of the answer is government subsidies, of which a good many farmers rely upon to survive, especially the smaller farms. If we took away the subsidies, farming in Wales would collapse over night and milk and meat would otherwise skyrocket in price. Yet what can Wales do? It's population cannot afford to buy local food at a fair price. Energy, specifically renewable energy, is perhaps the one place that Wales can compete but it's population hates it. They cannot for some reason, stand the view of a wind turbine, they hate seeing solar panels... they protest in thousands against nuclear... and if you attempt some kind of tidal energy the environmentalists come out of the woodwork complaining about biodiversity, harm to animal life, never mind the scenery. Now... Wollywood... seriously? Perhaps that was just a poor joke. Wales is working on the infrastructure, but this also has to be done in a sustainable way. Despite promises from the UK government, the funding that Wales lost from the EU (lets not forget Wales collectively voted to leave) has meant the money is simply not there any more. As for linking education to employment. Stop. Just Stop. No. This is a bad idea and has lead to the current situation in education we currently find ourselves in. The vast majority of employers in the UK have zero or next to zero interest in training their workforce, happy instead to outsource it to the government. That is not what education is about... I'm not entirely sure it's all about arts and literature either but we must stop education pupils according to what commerce demands. We cannot afford to do this and business... who are mostly private interests, should be the ones contributing to the economy, not the government subsidizing business and doing everything for them. Education in Wales and the UK is in dire need of reform and has needed reform for decades and it needs to cut out a good chunk of the curriculum so that teachers can focus on the basics. Logic & Mathematics, Communication, Observation, Meta-learning, Basic Life Skills. Please note how this doesn't on the face of it, include Art, Music, History, Geography, Business Studies, Religious Education, Literature... none of which should have their own subjects (unaffordable). I'm not saying that they can't be a part of lessons, but ultimately far too much emphasis is placed upon them. If people want those subjects then they can pay extra. Art, Music and History are important sure however, the important parts can be bundled in individual lessons. This does include however, surprisingly for me since I'm not an advocate, Cymraeg. It used to be... prior to the world wars, that education sat half and half, parents taught various skills, teachers taught others. However, a lot of parents do not have the skills themselves let alone pass them onto their children. Children attending nursery without being potty trained, not even being able to write their own names? Naturally the government needs to step in here, and encourage parents (by introducing a 4 day work week) to educate their children once we've given them the skills.

30+ comments show at least some realise that the economy is the elephant in the room if Cymru can banish itself from the Evil English Empire and stand on our own two feet as an independent nation. This responsibility lies with each and every one of us from the off, merely demanding companies come here or lauding actors who all leave here are inadequate steps on their own. We need a massive cultural re-set to the work ethic we had in coal and steel, agriculture and education. Very difficult under the current political and economic climate, but we have overcome so much in the past to save our language, culture, history and identity as Cymru.

The strengths noted are weak to say the least . We have terrible transport links on the main arteries, those need to be freed up . We do have a big customer on the doorstep which we could service if the the burden of excessive overheads were reduced , do we need to look overseas , one of the biggest dangers on the horizon is China and the UKs reliance on it for product ,

The celebrities mentioned all had to leave Wales to further their careers and fortunes many never returned choosing far off lands to live. The downfall of the Welsh economy seems to be the inability to support new welsh grown companies helping them to expand their business within Wales and add to the welsh economy, with grants and construction permissions being granted to foreign companies to build wind and solar farms anywhere they wish whilst not adding to the welsh economy and not employing local labour. And all overseen for 26 years by the labour controlled senedd.

We need a leadership that understands business and commerce, not leaders who have a social worker or bare public sector background or those that will always put feelgood active travel way before critical infrastructure developments. People itching to hammer anyone lucky enough to dream of approaching a six fig income. People too fearful to put a penny on income tax but who blindly stifle growth and jobs via so many convoluted additional business costs and NI hikes and taxes. I fear we are totally screwed and progress will never happen. I'm getting out. Trist. 😢

Nuclear power is NOT cheap! Wales does not need it!

I was expecting this to mention offshore wind, as we have the first in the U.K., but nuclear? Put here originally by Westminster as part of a 1960’s social engineering exercise due to low population density. As soon as nuclear closed, so did the other industries it brought with it. And we are about to repeat that, only with AI rather than an aluminium smelter

An article of fluff and lack of understanding of the constitutional arrangements. Wales is at a crossroads, so which direction to go. Build our own economy on Wales strengths. More support for SMEs, farmers, arts, build on our renewable resources and nuclear energy. This begs the question. With what? Wales has neither the economic or legislative means It is given annually sufficient finance for its public services and not much more.. It doesn’t have the money or can raise the money for such investment. Wales imported the LG’s etc because it had no other means of creating jobs. Less than ideal but the only way and the same is true today, Ron Davies, one of the architects of devolution and the Silk Commission on devolution have agreed  that the Wales government cannot grow the economy under the present constitutional arrangements with the UK. They don’t have the means. Comparisons with the likes of Singapore are meaningless, they are sovereign states able to raise their own finance and make their own laws . The point about renewables is to misunderstand the system. Although Wales is an unlimited source of renewables, it doesn’t belong to Wales. The Crown Estate issues the licence to private developers, invariably foreign, so the profits go over the border as does tax revenue and licence fees. And Wales is left with ??? Even in Scotland where Crown Estates are devolved. The Crown Estate office still makes the decisions. Scotland presently gets £12 million per year from the Crown Estate and its block grant is reduced accordingly.. Nuclear, even Plaid Cymru are seduced by it. The Small Modular Reactor proposed for Wylfa is not just smaller versions of the large ones. They are a different technology. An untested technology. The Wales plant will be not just the first in the UK, but the first in Europe. The only SMRs outside of the development stage are in Russia and China. They have more waste per unit of output and are chemically more toxic. They have higher neutron leakage than the conventional reactor and contaminates more of the infrastructure and water supply. Waste management of SMRs are untested and are recognised as problematic. So the answer. Try it in Wales first This in spite of the fact that Wales does not need nuclear. Recently the first licences have been awarded for floating turbines.Three licences in fact. The output from each of these floating turbine contracts is the equivalent to five of these nuclear reactors. Farmers. A lot of emphasis on farmers. Its regulation and lack of support is holding them back. No it’s producing the wrong product that's holding them back Welsh farmers are meat producers, a declining product. People, particularly the younger generation are moving away from meat consumption. Producers in New Zealand and Australia are also seeing this, so opening the UK market was a good move for them. A decision that Wales had no say in. Wales imports almost 70% of its fruit, vegetables and grain. Due to the change in climate, crops can be grown in Wales than even a decade ago was a problem. Yet there is no noticeable switch in priority to horticulture and crops. As for more support for actors. Wales is already supporting enough of them in the Senedd. So given these restrictions on the creation of wealth, I guess the author must be advocating sovereignty for Wales. It's the only way.