Remember The Matrix Reloaded? That scene when Neo realises he’s not the first; that there’ve been many versions before, each one an iteration trying to fix the flaws of the last? Well, welcome to the sequel, WDA 2.0.

For those of us who’ve been watching Wales’ economic performance since the original Welsh Development Agency (WDA) was scrapped in 2006, there’s a sense of déjà vu; only this time, the stakes feel higher.

We’ve now had nearly two decades of policy drift, bureaucratic chop-and-change and missed opportunity. Productivity’s still flat, investment in innovation lags behind the UK average and too many of our businesses never make it past the start-up phase.

Despite all the promise of devolution, we’ve yet to crack the code of sustainable, Wales-led economic growth. And........

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