The region’s Ambition Board chief says it is time for North Wales to brag about what it does well to attract more private investment.
North Wales Economic Ambition Board has secured £240m in Growth Deal funding from Welsh and 海角视频 governments to help boost the economy but aims to turn this into a £1bn investment by working with the private sector.
They are rebranding under the banner of Ambition North Wales for the overarching vision for growth in the region - including launching a new website after months of development.
This comes as they bid to push through 14 projects aimed at creating jobs, raising wages and boosting GDP.
But Alwen Williams, portfolio director of the Ambition Board, said people now needed to see “tangible change” and “spades in the ground”.
She said: “There are a serious amount of investors out there with capital and there is a huge opportunity for North Wales to put out there the narrative that makes it compelling for businesses and investors to invest here.
“We have got an awful lot on offer, in terms of our natural environment but also our skills and history in manufacturing, low carbon energy and tech.
“Our website is part of that wider story about attracting investment here."
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Projects are now starting to get the sign-off from the project board with Bangor University’s Digital Signal Processing (DSP) centre leading the way.
Alwen added: “Things are moving forward, the interesting bit is not about constructing the business case and pulling information together to make the project happen, the interesting bit for people and society is when the spade hits the ground, then they can see tangible change happening.
“It is really encouraging we can start putting projects to the board and start the procurement.
“Standing back, I can imagine someone by now is desperate to see that happen because we have talked about this for a long time.”
Talking about the need for the region to promote itself, she added: “We are almost told in Wales to be modest, we don’t brag enough about what we are good about and we need to because there are other countries that are stealing our lunch by putting out there what they are really good at, putting together what they can offer investors.
“In the last 18 months we have needed to do that in a different way as we haven’t been able to invite people to the region, which makes it so much easier to sell the area.
"We really need to think about our proposition, especially given the insights we seem to be getting is that there is no shortage of investors out there looking for their next big investment.
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"There is no reason why North Wales could not be the right place for that investment.
“One thing about North Wales is we are small enough to move really quickly when need to do that but big enough to make an impact and make an impact on a global scale as well. That is an advantage that not every region has and we should sell that as one of our attractive attributes.
“But there is a big piece of work to be done selling North Wales using the Growth Deal as a backdrop. This is North Wales investing in its economy to unlock those market failure areas.
“We can then say to the private sector, ‘we have invested in digital infrastructure, invested in our sites and premises, we now have a proposition that commercially stacks up for your business’, where previously perhaps would not stack up as well.”
The new site - - is due to launch in the next few days.