FM confident of big boost from summit

THE Welsh Government is hopeful its International Investment Summit next week will result in significant outcomes, particularly from investors and companies currently not active in Wales.

- SION BARRY

The summit, the brainchild of First Minister Eluned Morgan, will be staged at the ICC Wales in Newport on Monday.

Recently-agreed investment projects in Wales yet to be made public will be announced to give the event added impetus.

Of the 250 firms attending which, include investors such as private equity and pension funds with billions in deployable capital as well as individual firms 60% (150) are currently not active in the Welsh marketplace.

In total, the summit will be attended by more than 1,500 delegates.

While the Welsh Government has provided prospectus of investable projects across Wales, including the Global Centre of Rail Excellence (GCRE) in the Dulais Valley and the £450m planned Advanced Radioisotope Technology for Health Utility Reactor a facility designed to secure the UK's long-term supply of medical radioisotopes officials in breakout rooms will be on hand to capture any other investment opportunities.

However, opportunities seeded at the summit could take a number of years to be realised as job-creating live projects.

Any of the investable opportunities being pitched by the Welsh Government are already in the marketplace.

While the GCRE, which would be the world's first integrated testing facility for both trains and rail infrastructure, has attracted interest from the private sector, they are not willing to commit at the required level, leaving the Welsh Government facing having to plough more of its own funding into it.