New investment zone for Newport and Cardiff welcomed by Chair of the Western Gateway

It is great to see the Chancellor announce a new Investment Zone for South-East Wales to support the semi-conductor sector across the Newport and Cardiff area in his Autumn statement today.

Across South Wales and Western England, the Western Gateway area is home to advanced manufacturing, renowned universities and high-tech clusters of innovative businesses.  With a skilled workforce and a quality of life that can attract and retain talent from across the world, our area has huge potential to build on our strengths to create new economic opportunities for England and Wales.

Our emerging technology and digital industries are particularly strong with world leading research into advanced engineering, data solutions and the creative sector. Our area recently saw new investment to build the UK’s most powerful supercomputer to power new AI research. 

This is all underpinned by our incredible cross border strengths in cyber, providing a solid base for digital businesses to lead research into exciting new areas of innovation.  Recently these strengths have seen a massive vote of confidence from the government with new funding secured to build the National Cyber Innovation Centre in our area.

Today’s announcement underlines the huge potential we have to drive a future UK economy and, in particular, the vital importance of the area’s semi-conductor industry.  With companies in the area delivering 55% global market share on this vital advanced manufacturing industry, this is a truly world leading strength for Wales and the rest of the UK.

It has been great to see new support for our area in recent months.  I look forward to working with Governments in Wales and the UK, businesses and universities to unlock our potential further, improving productivity to add a further £34bn to the UK economy by 2030.

Let’s build on our potential to ensure that we can ensure the UK is playing a leading role in developing the future world economy!