Plaid Cymru sets new growth targets for Welsh economy

Nation.Cymru staff

Plaid Cymru has set a target of 500 high-growth Welsh firms within ten years, alongside a new programme to help businesses expand and create jobs.

Minister for Enterprise, Connectivity and Energy Adam Price is setting out the plans at the party’s conference, arguing that they could create the conditions for an additional Welsh company to enter the FTSE 100.

The programme, called Sbardun, will support firms with the potential to become medium-sized businesses. Applications will open this autumn, with the first 20 companies starting a two-year programme in April.

They will receive Development Bank investment, guidance from an entrepreneur who has already grown a business, and support from the other participating firms. Each will have a plan to address the obstacles preventing it from expanding.

Mr Price is expected to tell delegates: “Scale matters. We should want more Welsh firms to succeed, to grow and to compete on the world stage. But scale is a means, not an end. The end is good jobs everywhere.

“Because success is not measured simply by the number of companies that reach the summit. It is measured by whether people in every part of Wales can build a good life through good work.”

The ten-year target would bring Wales into line with the UK for the number of high-growth firms relative to its population, according to Mr Price.

He says helping more small businesses become medium-sized, and more medium-sized firms become large, would provide a stronger base from which Welsh companies could reach the FTSE 100.

The initial Sbardun programme will be used to establish which support works best before it is expanded through the planned Welsh National Development Agency.

“Twenty is a start. We will learn what works. And what works for twenty, the new agency will take to scale,” Mr Price is expected to say.

The announcement comes at Plaid Cymru’s first conference since forming the Welsh Government in May. It forms part of ministers’ wider ambition to halve the productivity gap between Wales and the UK within a decade.

An economic progress update published in August showed that output per hour worked in Wales was 84.9% of the UK average in 2023.

Productivity measures how much economic value is produced for each hour worked. Improving it can help businesses raise wages and invest in growth.

Increased funding

The August update identified the new development agency and increased funding for business growth through the Development Bank of Wales as priorities.

It also outlined plans to improve skills and training, invest in transport and broadband, and assess the electricity network capacity needed to support economic growth.

Keeping more public spending in Wales by supporting Welsh suppliers is another part of the government’s approach.

The conference announcement does not specify an overall budget for Sbardun or how much investment individual businesses could receive.

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