Welsh Journals

12. THE WELSH ECONOMY: A STATISTICAL PROFILE David Brooksbank INTRODUCTION This article is the annual statistical profile of the Welsh economy that follows the established format common to volumes 9, 10, 11 and 12 of Contemporary Wales. The discussion in the main text covers six topics, namely, Output, Income and Expenditure; Employment; Unemployment; Earnings; House Prices; and Competitiveness. This year there have been a number of changes in the way in which the Office for National Statistics (ONS) have compiled the data for the regions, and this has resulted in changes to some of the tables reproduced below. Where changes have occurred, the accompanying commentary describes the effect on the information. The sixteen tables are based on information made available prior to 1 June 2000 and, as noted in previous surveys, compilation and production lags with respect to certain official statistics mean that 'latest' figures occasionally 'lag' by two or three years. Appropriate data are available at a Unitary Authority (UA) level and where comparisons are made with other UK regions, this review uses Government Office Regions (GORs). This review has been compiled at the time when Wales is about to embark on the next round of expenditure under the new European Structural Fund arrangements. As the survey goes to press this year, the Objective 1 Single Programming Document (SPD) for Wales has now been approved b the European Commission in Brussels, and local and national partnerships are now free to prepare eligible projects. Readers will note that this is some seven months into the eligible period for the 2000-6 funds, and concern continues to be voiced that Wales will have difficulty spending the available monies. The information summarized in the tables below illustrates the profound nature of the economic development challenges that lie ahead, and delays in starting projects and programmes will do little to kick-start the regeneration process.