Plaid Cymru AM Dr. Dai Lloyd has claimed that the Welsh population is losing out by £2000 per person due to its lack of foreign language skills.

Dr. Lloyd’s claim comes following a number of representations received from the business sector who claim that the lack of foreign language skills could be costing the Welsh economy somewhere in the region of £6billion.

Dr. Lloyd is now calling on the Assembly’s Economic Development Minister Andrew Davies to increase the support available to Welsh-based companies in targeting foreign markets.

Dr. Lloyd today stated:

“Wales is losing out massively due to our inability to properly get to grips with the international markets out there. Simply doing business with English-speaking companies is holding us back, particularly when you consider that only 6% of the world’s population are native English speakers, and 75% speak no English at all.

“The other 94% have languages of their own and it is vital that we in Wales build up a capacity to deal with this significant section. In order to compete with the up and coming economic powerhouses Wales needs to box clever and foreign language skills are integral to that.

“I feel that the Assembly needs to be doing more in promoting this aspect, not only through education, but also aiding current businesses in the field of translation and language skills.”

Diwedd/Ends

Notes

Statistics used in this article are provided by the National Centre for Languages.