By Will Smale
Business reporter, BBC News, Wales
The recent Grand Slam success of the Welsh rugby team has brought the feelgood factor back to the country's national sport.
Even Cardiff City have got in on the act, reaching this month's FA Cup final, and in the world of boxing, Joe Calzaghe reigns undefeated.
But while Wales' sporting prowess is continuing to make itself heard, what about the Welsh economy?
In the decade since Wales gained devolution, the capital Cardiff has been transformed.
Buoyed by a new-found prosperity and confidence, it has enjoyed a construction boom that has sprung up a whole new skyline.
Led by the roof towers of the giant Millennium Stadium, the city centre has mushroomed shiny apartment blocks and swanky hotels.
With a huge new shopping centre set to add to an already vibrant retail environment, it is fair to say that Cardiff has changed from provincial city to proper capital.
"Wales is undoubtedly over-reliant upon the public sector"
The metamorphosis is even more pronounced in Cardiff's old docks, where the new Welsh assembly building stands next to the Wales Millennium Centre opera house at the centre of a whole new waterfront development.
Wales' second city Swansea has also got in on the redevelopment act.
Where once the Luftwaffe had been Swansea's main urban designer, it too has successfully mixed public and private funds to add a 21st Century shine.
Coal legacy
Yet for all Cardiff's retail and service sector-led boom, you don't have to go far inland from the capital - into the south Wales valleys - to see that the Welsh economy still has a long way to go to recover from the death of the mining industry in the 1980s.
Towns in the famous Rhondda Valley - once the powerhouse of the Welsh coal industry - can contrast sharply with the wealth of Cardiff.
Pound shops and charity stores stand forlornly on high streets where time can seem to have stopped for a number of years.
And this picture is replicated across the valleys.
As a consequence, Wales' official economic output figures make stark reading. In 1979 Wales' gross domestic product was 93% of the UK average. Today it is just 77%.
By contrast, over the same period the Republic of Ireland has gone from 60% to 104%.
With pockets of poverty in south Wales as bad as anywhere in western Europe, the continuing challenge for the Welsh Assembly Government is to attract businesses into the valleys, and help those that are there to grow.
Armed with both its own money and European funds, the assembly government - Labour from its inception in 1999, a Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition from 2000 - 2003, Labour again to 2007, and a Labour - Plaid Cymru coalition since last year - certainly continues to help improve matters.
Yet with many valleys hampered by their relative geographical isolation, it remains a challenge.
Add a poor skills base, and it is fair to say that many firms find the thought of relocating to the valleys an unappealing prospect.
Public sector
To prevent high levels of unemployment, economists say the assembly government has simply aided the creation of ever more public sector jobs.
The figures certainly show that 30% of all jobs in Wales are in the public sector - be they in local government, schools or hospitals - compared with the UK average of 24%.
Whether this is a good or bad situation really depends upon your political persuasion.
Critics liken Wales to a Soviet relic and say it is sucking in English taxpayers' money, a part of the UK that consumes 6% of public funds, yet only contributes 4% of tax revenues.
For its supporters, the Welsh Assembly Government (and by association Westminster) is simply doing a good job in boosting the economy.
They point to the fact that the unemployment rate in Wales is now actually lower than the UK average - 4.9% in the three months until the end of February, compared with 5.2%.
And while public sector spending in Wales is higher than in England - an average £8,139 per person compared with £7,121 in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland get even more - £8,623 and £9,385 respectively.
It is also important to stress that the poorest regions of England also get more public funds than the English average.
'Power and flexibility'
A spokesman for the assembly government says the Welsh economy remains "fundamentally strong".
"While inevitably affected by global economic trends and UK policy, since devolution Wales has a government with the powers and the flexibility to tackle the impact of these trends in ways which suit Welsh needs," he adds.
The spokesman says the main economic policy of the assembly government is two-fold - helping indigenous firms to grow at the same time as attracting new ones.
Rhys David, associate director of independent think tank the Institute of Welsh Affairs says Wales "is undoubtedly over-reliant upon the public sector".
"However, I don't think it is too large, rather that we have too small a private sector - not enough people in Wales are actually generating wealth.
"Obviously we have to keep on persuading people to start up in business, and persuade companies to invest here."
Cutting taxes
A radical solution increasingly put forward for boosting the private sector in Wales is to follow the Republic of Ireland's example and reduce Welsh business tax rates.
However, this is also a political minefield - at least for the Labour half of the "One Wales" coalition.
While the assembly government says it is committed to an independent commission to review assembly funding and finance - including the feasibility of business tax rebates in Wales' poorest areas - any such move would inevitably bring it into conflict with the Treasury in Westminster.
And while the Plaid Cymru half of the coalition in Cardiff Bay would undoubtedly love the fight, the Welsh Labour Party could find itself having to negotiate with a Labour-run Treasury unwilling to see a further disparity - at least in the short term - between what Wales gets in public funds from Westminster, and what it contributes.
It will be interesting to see how both the politics and economics of post-devolution Wales continue to develop.
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