The Annual Welsh GVA post (with unemployment update)

It’s just over a week to Christmas, the Assembly is in recess, so it must be a good time to publish the annual GVA figures for Wales making sure they get lost in the pre Christmas noise and sparing Welsh Minister’s having to answer awkward questions about why they are so bad and why Wales remains at the bottom of the heap again.

So what do they say, little different from previous years unfortunately, there has been some bounce back from the recession, but Welsh GVA for 2010 was still 0.3% down from 2009 figures to now stand at 74.0%.

The key points from the latest release are:

Total headline GVA in Wales in 2010 was £45.5 billion, up 3.5 per cent on 2009, GVA for the UK (excluding extra-regio) rose by 3.2 per cent.

Headline GVA per head in Wales in 2010 was £15,145, up 3.3 per cent on 2009, whilst GVA per head for the UK (excluding extra-regio) rose by 2.4 per cent.

GVA per head in Wales in 2010 was 74.0 per cent of the UK average, the lowest amongst the devolved countries and English regions.

The NUTS2 estimates for 2009 show headline GVA per head in East Wales and West Wales and the Valleys at 91.4 per cent and 62.8 per cent of the UK average respectively.

The Government will no doubt focus on the increased output from 2009 and say things are moving in the right direction, however 2009 was when the UK and Wales was in a brutal recession which means much of the 2010 increase in making up the lost capacity which is positive but the Welsh economy remains on life support and both Government’s need to be more proactive to help create jobs and secure investment.

Yes the folks in Cardiff Bay are constrained by what they can do but the GVA figures combined with today’s unemployment news that 11,000 more people are out of work and the unemployment rate stands 9.1% should be the catalyst for action not more hand wringing.

As for actual data, we are a few weeks from 2012 and today’s figures cover 2010, that’s right they are already more than a year out of date. So how can anyone from investors to business and voters take the Welsh Government seriously on economic matters when it doesn’t take the economy seriously itself and refuses to publish more up to date economic data despite regional Governments in Scotland and Catatonia managing to?Any source