£34m Welsh Government fund protects more than 14,000 North Wales jobs

Economy Minister Ken Skates has revealed that the Welsh Government’s unique Economic Resilience Fund (ERF) has already supported more than 1800 North Wales businesses with £34m of funding, helping them to protect more than 14,000 jobs.

Across Wales the fund has seen £150m worth of crucial grants provided to businesses, helping them deal with the impacts of coronavirus.

More than 1,800 businesses in North Wales have been assisted through the unique scheme.

Ken Skates said:

“These are incredibly challenging times and the Economic Resilience fund is designed to provide vital support for businesses.

“We wanted to get the funding out to businesses as quickly as possible and so far in North Wales tens of millions of pounds has gone out, helping protect more than 14,000 jobs.  The ERF was set up to plug the gaps left in the UK Government’s support and I’m pleased that the fund is supporting businesses which otherwise would have been left behind.

“In North Wales we are working closely with all our partners including local authorities, North Wales Economic Ambition Board and Mersey Dee Alliance as we face these challenging times together.” 

The ERF is part of the Welsh Government’s £1.7 billion package of support for business which is the most generous and comprehensive offer of help anywhere in the UK.

This also includes more than 65,000 awards worth £750m of business rate relief to help them respond to financial challenges due to the pandemic.

The second phase of the ERF, which closed on Friday 10 July, extended support to non-VAT registered limited companies and businesses that started after March 2019.

A separate £5m fund established to specifically to support start-up firms not helped by the UK Government’s Self Employment income support scheme remains open for applications. The grant scheme will support up to 2,000 start-ups in Wales with a grant of £2,500 each.