Wales in the 21st Century: An Economic Future

153 Pages·2000·2.256 MB·English

by  Jane Bryan, Calvin Jones (eds.)

WALES IN THE 21st CENTURY
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Wales in the 21st

Century

An Economic Future

Edited by
Jane Bryan

and

Calvin Jones

Foreword by Garel Rhys
# Jane Bryan and Calvin Jones 2000
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2000 978-0-333-79373-2
Selection and editorial matter
Chapter 2 # Calvin Jones 2000 Chapters 5 and 7 # Jane Bryan 2000
Foreword # Garel Rhys 2000
Other chapters (in order) # Stephen Hill, Karl Taylor and Jane Bryan, Max
Munday,
Gillian Bristow, David Brooksbank and David Pickernell,
Meirion Thomas and Martin Rhisiart, Annette Roberts, Stephen Hill 2000
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The authors have asserted their rights to be identified
as the authors of this work in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2000 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
ISBN 97 8-1-349-41992-0 ISBN 978-0-333-98153-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780333981535
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Contents

List of Tables and Figures vii
Foreword by Professor Garel Rhys x
Notes on the Contributors xi
1 Wales in Transition 1
Stephen Hill
2 Comparative Disadvantage? The Industrial
Structure of Wales 11
Calvin Jones
3 Earning a Living 25
Karl Taylor and Jane Bryan
4 Foreign Direct Investment in Wales: Lifeline or Leash? 37
Max Munday
5 Small Firms in Wales 55
Jane Bryan
6 Renewing Rural Wales 71
Gillian Bristow
7 The Millennium Express 87
Jane Bryan
8 Making the Most of it: Objective 1 Status,
Assisted Area Status and the Valleys 101
David Brooksbank and David Pickernell
9 Innovative Wales 115
Meirion Thomas and Martin Rhisiart
10 Setting Policy Targets and Evaluating Performance 123
Annette Roberts
v
vi Contents
11 Shaping the Future 131
Stephen Hill
Index 139
List of Tables and Figures

Tables
1.1 The Welsh economy 3
1.2 GDP by industry groups, Wales and UK, 1996 4
1.3 Concentration of Welsh industry and relative UK
sector growth 5
1.4 Long-term regional forecasts of GDP growth 5
3.1 Employment shares by sector, UK and Wales, 1996 27
3.2 GDP shares by sector, Wales and UK, 1996 27
3.3 Occupation structure of working-age population,
Spring 1997 28
3.4 Average gross weekly earnings in Wales (UK=100),
1976, 1988 and 1998 29
3.5 Male earnings by sector as a percentage of all sector
average earnings, April 1997 30
4.1 Labour productivity by industry in Wales, 1995 40
4.2 Foreign and domestic manufacturing characteristics
in Wales, 1992 40
4.3 Foreign-owned companies in Wales: enterprises and
employment 42
4.4 Employment changes in foreign-owned enterprises
in Wales, 1979±93 48
4.5 Percentage of materials and services sourced
in host region, 1995 49
11.1 Annual real percentage change in GDP 132
11.2 Achieving targets for Wales 132
11.3 Changes to increase Welsh GDP
by 1 per cent 133
Figures
1.1 The population of Wales, 1600±2000 2
1.2 Employment in major industries, 1851±1991 2
1.3 GDP per Head in Wales relative to UK, plus trend line 6
1.4 Wales GDP per head based on population
and workforce 7
vii
viii List of Tables and Figures
1.5 1996 GDP per head, by NUTS III area 8
3.1 Welsh male earnings by occupation relative to GB
by occupation, 1991±98 31
4.1 Index of foreign manufacturing employment and
gross value added in Wales, 1981±96 43
4.2 Activities of foreign manufacturers in Wales, 1996 44
5.1 Registrations and deregistrations: Wales as a
UK share, 1985±96 60
5.2 Production sector registrations and deregistrations:
Wales as a UK share, 1985±96 61
5.3 Enterprises registering for VAT by region per 10 000
population (16+yrs), 1994±97 62
5.4 Turnover per employee Wales,
UK (excluding the south-east) and all UK 62
6.1 The agri-food partnership delivery mechanism 75
7.1 UK modes of transport, 1953 and 1993
(shares of passenger miles) 89
Foreword

While too few books singularly attend to Welsh issues, those that do
have to answer several challenges, and particularly so as Wales enters a
new era of self-governance and, indeed, a new century. Entering the
third millennium is only notionally a new beginning but with so much
rapid change in both the political and economic arena, and the prospect
of greater enlightenment and expectation among the Welsh people, the
new century is a fitting springboard for a work which draws together
the past, present and future as its purpose.
Wales today is a product of its past, and Wales of the future is already
being shaped by how we understand the present. Nineteenth-century
Wales was essentially a village economy, transformed by dense clusters
of coal and steel activity, sitting alongside the old agrarian tradition.
There followed a further wave of restructuring with the introduction
of more diversified manufacturing, much of it inward investment from
the rest of UK and elsewhere, which widened the old narrow base
and contributed to the growth of cities and towns, joined by new
infrastructure. Towards the end of the twentieth century a new shift
from manufacturing to the service industry, in common with the rest
of the developed world, is beginning to prevail, requiring still more
adjustment by the Welsh people.
Many of the more recent changes have been managed, through regio-
nal policy tools, by the Welsh Office and the development agencies, not
only to mitigate high unemployment but also to pursue a prosperity goal
that will ensure that the Welsh people are at least as well off as the rest of
the United Kingdom. Sadly, in this regard, the most cogent lesson of
the last years of the last century is that Wales has not yet caught up
and, indeed, has to fight hard merely to stand still, despite its success
in attracting foreign investment and the energetic efforts of policy
executives.
The first challenge to be met by this book is fixing the present into the
past. Chapter 1 provides an introductory background followed by Chap-
ters 2 and 3 which look at the roots of disadvantage faced by Wales
in terms of industrial and occupational structure and incomes, demon-
strating that understanding the past is critical to adjusting the future.
Of course, this book is about the future, so the second challenge is to
fix that future into the present, principally by deepening our under-
standing of policy direction and its outcomes. Chapter 4 addresses the
ix