Neil Ashbridge, the Bank of England’s Agent for Wales (right), was the guest speaker at the launch of a new concept in business networking for Mid Wales and the Borders.
A large audience drawn from the local business community, major banks and the public sector attended.
In his presentation Neil covered the role of the Bank, particularly in maintaining low and stable inflation, as well as outlining some of the proposed changes to the Bank’s financial stability remit and regulation of the financial sector. He then gave an overview of the Bank’s latest quarterly Inflation Report.
Neil said: “My role is to feed back direct to the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) on soundings from meetings I have with a wide range of business in Wales on trends and developments across the economy. This feedback is vital to the bank and the MPC, especially in times of high uncertainty, in helping to set monetary policy to meet the government’s inflation target of 2%.”
He also mentioned that he is keen to hear and receive feedback from businesses and for any business interested in speaking to him to make contact: wales@bankofengland.co.uk.
The message from the audience was that business confidence is rising slowly as markets and private sector starts to invest, but confidence is fragile and the economy still needs careful handling to keep the recovery on track.
The Network is sponsored by TGAL (Tattum Guest Associated Ltd ) Economic Regeneration Consultants and Hicks Randles Ltd Chartered Accountants.
Roger Guest, Managing Director of TGAL, said: “This is a new business to business network and we were delighted that Neil was able to launch it for us. The network is free to all business in Mid Wales and the Borders and more events are planned over the coming months in North/South Powys , Aberystwyth and Telford.”
The aim is to foster business to business trading links and to assist this process buyers from a number of major organisations in Wales and the UK will be invited to attend.