The Annual Welsh GVA post

Here we go again the 2011 Welsh GVA figures were published today, the first GVA data on the welsh economy published since 14^th December 2010 and as usual it’s already 12 months out of date. It long overdue that the Welsh Government starts producing more regular figures like the Scottish and Catalan Government’s manage quarterly and six monthly, but rant over for another year.

First the good news, GVA is up 2.2% to 75.2% or £15,696 per head on the 2010 figures, but that where the good news ends despite the jump Wales is still remain bottom of the heap compared to the rest of the UK.  Northern Ireland’s GVA is 79.2% or £16,531 and Scotland’s is 98.6% or £20,571 per head.

There are also regional difference within Wales East Wales average GVA income is £19,309 compared with West Wales and the Valleys of £13,573

The key points from the latest release are:

·         Total headline GVA in Wales in 2011 was £47.3 billion, up 2.2 per cent on 2010, GVA for the UK (excluding extra-regio) rose by 2.3 per cent.

·         Headline GVA per head in Wales in 2011 was £15,696, up 1.9 per cent on 2010, whilst GVA per head for the UK (excluding extra-regio) rose by 1.4 per cent.

·         GVA per head in Wales in 2011 was 75.2 per cent of the UK average, the lowest amongst the devolved countries and English regions but up 0.3 percentage points over the year.

·         The NUTS2 estimates for 2011 show headline GVA per head in East Wales and West Wales and the Valleys at 92.5 per cent and 65.0 per cent of the UK average respectively.

This will be the final release which uses the smoothed headline data. In future the ONS will be leading with unsmoothed data, more information can be found in the ONS release under future work plans.

I suspect the response from the Welsh and UK Government’s to be telling us how good these figures are because of all the ‘good work’ they are doing on the economy as well as taking credit for the welcome fall in unemployment, but the truth is that the changes for good or bad are mostly out of their control.

The full data tables are here including GVA breakdowns for each Local Authority