The Welsh Government is the devolved Government for Wales, UK. With five offices located in the Embassy and Consulates throughout the US, we are constantly working alongside our colleagues across UK Government to achieve the highly ambitious agenda established for us here in the USA by Ministers back in Wales. As laid out in our international strategy found here, we are focused on increasing the profile and influence of Wales in the world through our three core ambitions.
Ambition 1: Raise Wales’ profile internationally
- We are focused on developing and forging political networks at Federal and State level to identify opportunities to showcase Wales. We build on this by working with sporting and cultural partners in Wales on annual visit plans to identify opportunities to support whilst in market, building strong diaspora networks across the whole of the USA using our representative offices, building and managing a small group of high quality contacts to support the wider remit of the team, encouraging research partnerships and student exchange programmes between American and Welsh Universities, using St David’s Day as a platform to promote Wales and increasing Wales’ profile through a focused communications plan including an increased use of social media.
Ambition 2: Grow our economy by helping businesses in Wales increase exports and attracting high quality inward investment
- We work with partners such as the British American Business Association and DIT to identify export opportunities within the US market aligned to capabilities of Welsh companies. Such focused sectors include energy, life sciences and aerospace. We also work with our Trade Support Team in Wales to increase the number of Welsh companies undertaking export focus visits to the US by providing direct support ahead of and during visits. We proactively focus on the key sectors of compound semi-conductors, cyber security and creative industries to outline the capabilities in Wales in terms of skills availability, R&D capabilities, property and access to funding.
- We also partner with multipliers such as DIT, Chambers of Commerce and business groups to outline the strengths of Wales and jointly target business with investment potential. Our objective is to build and maintain strong relationships with decision makers within existing US investors in Wales to understand current plans and identify opportunities for reinvestment.
Ambition 3: Establish Wales as a globally responsible nation
- We work directly with international organisations, such as the United Nations to highlight areas where Wales has a strong message. We promote bilingualism and share our expertise in order to promote and support minority and indigenous languages while working with wider Welsh Government teams to promote achievements around the Well-being of Future Generations Act and recycling successes as examples. We also work with both Welsh based research institutions and universities and similarly aligned think tanks, educational and research institutions and companies to highlight Wales’ approach and commitment to areas such as sustainability and renewable energy research.
To deliver all of these ambitious objectives, Dr. Zowie Hay has recently been appointed as the Head of Welsh Government in North America. Based in Washington DC, Dr. Hay oversees the team across the USA as well as our operations in Canada. She remains deeply committed to continuing to strengthen our links in the Greater Philadelphia region to help us deliver these objectives. For more on Wales and the activities of the Welsh Government across the world, please visit www.wales.com.
