Munich Welsh in talks with Welsh Government in Germany

A call was held on the 9th of March between Munich Welsh members, Michael and Alun, and a representative of the Welsh Government in Germany, namely Samantha Dimond, Head of Germany, Welsh Government. Samantha is located at the British Embassy in Berlin.

The call came about after us having initially been linked by an acquaintance to the British Consular General in Munich.

Samantha has been in Berlin for less than two years and is supported by a further colleague, Martha Pawlita, also in Berlin, and Marc Shanker in the Düsseldorf office.

Samantha’s mandate is in essence to develop networks within Germany that will increase the profile of Wales and lead to a higher level of awareness in several domains. These include foreign direct investment (Germany already has around 100 companies in Wales), trade with Germany (Germany is Wales’ largest trading partner), tourism (joint second largest source of overseas visitors), academia (second largest group of overseas students at Welsh universities) and the arts. Despite the fact that the Welsh Government having people in Germany is an encouraging sign, the Scottish Government, as a reference point, has sixteen people in Germany, and is therefore in a much better position to take action.

Samantha’s team is therefore constrained to focussing on a few key Bundesländer, namely Bayern, Baden-Württemberg and Nordrhein-Westfalen, where there are strong activities relating to two main industries/technologies, i.e. aerospace (big focus on the cluster around Airbus in North Wales) and compound semiconductors, which has a well-established cluster in South Wales and has received considerable funding from the UK Government.

One means of increasing awareness of Wales is through visits to Germany by Government representatives (visit by First Minister, Mark Drakeford, was cancelled two weeks ago for some reason), networking activities and events. Samantha is planning an event to be held either on or around St David’s Day 2021, and is very open ideas and impetus from the Munich community. One idea put forward was to have some kind of trade delegation from Wales, possibly to visit a fair or congress, accompanied by a St David’s Day reception in the evening, presumably with an invitation to the Munich community. These, as well as other activities can profit from mutual postings on our respective websites or social media channels, once we are up and running.

We agreed to keep in close contact and discuss further about the event mentioned above. We will keep you posted on our progress.