News » Wales Business Insider: Putting Wales on the map - G24 Innovations, personalising solar power, solar energy, dye sensitized solar, renewable energy, panel, charger, cell, sensitised

Inside a factory in Wentloog in Cardiff a company - G24i - is making headlines.

In The Guardian, its founder and chairman Robert Hertzberg, has just been listed as one of 50 people who could save the planet.

It has been applauded for developing a new class of advanced solar cells which convert light into electrical energy, even in the absence of sunlight.

On top of this the company has signed a deal to sell lightweight solar cells designed to recharge mobile phones.

G24i's success is, too, part of a bigger story which is Wales and its growing prominence in a global market.

It was Wales' commitment to sustainable energy that attracted the G24i's Californian team to the principality 18 months ago.

The technical and financial support offered by the Welsh Assembly via International Business Wales, and the government's ability to sign a deal with G24i quickly - which meant the company could move in quickly and 'hit the ground running' - were added incentives. "The first market we hope to go into is Africa," says Eliot Abel, G24i's sustainability programmes manager. "But we were looking for world headquarters in Europe. "For us, having agencies like International Business Wales supporting us as we move forward, and the backing of a country that has green credentials and a real commitment to sustainable energy, as well as access to the strong, skilled workforce that exists in Wales, were important issues."

Renewable energy is now one of the sectors International Business Wales (IBW) focuses on and promotes in its bid to ensure Wales holds its own on the global market. "The market for foreign investment is a lot tougher today," says Ian Williams, director of IBW. "Unlike 20 years ago, every other country has got its act together, so we're competing with regional development agencies across the UK and across Europe," says Williams. "But we are a small, clever and beautiful country.

We just have to be able to differentiate our message and ensure Wales' unique selling propositions are clearly communicated to investors." "There are sectors where we feel we have very real competitive advantages," says Ian Williams. "Tourism, creative industries, financial services, bioscience, energy and sustainability - as illustrated by G24i's' arrival here - are all strong areas with masses of potential for investment. "And there are advantages to being small, too," says Williams. "Not least our incredibly fast links to decisions makers.

Our ministers are available and ready and waiting to make decisions, which can be an enormous advantage to companies not wanting to get held up in huge bureaucracy." G24i felt the benefit.

And it has been a key issue for other companies, Amazon being a good example when they created an enormous site in Swansea, bringing 1,200 jobs to the city." The figures seem to stack up.

Wales has nearly 10 per cent of the UK's foreign investment, while being home to just under 5 per cent of the population.

But IBW knows that to maintain that trend the opportunities have to be matched by a pretty clever marketing plan to get the message across.

IBW's head of marketing, Paul Landricombe, has the job of communicating the messages across the world through press campaigns, trade missions and export shows, and via IBW's overseas regional directors who identify those companies wanting to expand, and so promoting what Wales has to offer. "We know we have a lot going for us as a country, but the marketing message we send to companies has to be very specific to them," says Landricombe. "This is not about spin.

We have to be about original thinking.

We listen to what businesses need.

The direction they are heading.

Then we go away and come back with tailored solutions.

We have what we call a Team Wales approach.

We work closely with universities and other sector bodies (in the aerospace, biomedicine, creative sectors, etc), to promote one tailored proposition to encourage people to come in." This work is continuous throughout the year, coming together on trade missions and at export shows, where Welsh companies may take along academics, researchers and consultants to present a case to potential investors.

IBW also organises inward press events.

Landricombe recently arranged a visit for Italian journalists, including one who was interested in Wales' bioscience programme and the country's' incubation facilities for new bioscience start ups.

The result was a double page spread in the Italian equivalent of the Financial Times. "We don't pretend to attract every type of business.

We tell it like it is.

And that sometimes means saying what we haven't got, what we can't do.

But where we have got a cracking proposition we make sure we get that message across." Animated One of IBW's remits is to support home grown companies looking to take their products abroad, by supporting research into potential markets, organising and financing trade missions to key target areas, and - via a network of agents on the ground, marrying companies here with potential foreign partners.

It was with the financial support of IBW that a Cardiff-based animation company, Dinamo, went out to industry events in Cannes and Canada recently, as part of a bid to see Wales' creative sector recognised on the global market.

Its staff are now working on special effects for a Los Angeles-produced horror film and have signed a deal with a Canadian distributor for an animated series about a crime-fighting moose.

Dinamo, along with their Welsh competitors, are committed to Wales making its mark on the international animation market.

Owen Stickler told Insider they are working in an industry where a lot of the networking goes on in a few restaurants in London's Soho. "But that just means we have to work hard at selling our uniqueness," says Stickler. "To keep what we do looking fresh and on the cutting edge." Salt In the food industry, which has its share of exporting success stories, Anglesey Sea Salt knew that to grow they had to look outside the UK. "It was never about saying look at us, we are from Wales," says Anglesey's Alison Lea-Wilson. "It was about communicating the purity and quality of our product.

But Wales has a reputation for purity and integrity.

We went to Hong Kong in 2007 with one of IBW's trade missions and there was a great piece in a Hong Kong newspaper about the environment here.

About it being clean and beautiful.

We are not afraid to promote that - or our Welshness - on our packaging and on our website." IBW host six international food exhibitions around the world - Dubai, Barcelona, Singapore, Amsterdam, New York and Paris.

According to Rufus Carter, managing director of Patchwork Foods in Ruthin, the Welsh stand knocks the socks off any other UK stand at exhibitions because of the articulate way the message is branded - what food from Wales means. "It is not about hand holding, or about simply handing out brochures.

If you go out to these countries you have to have the right product to sell, at the right price and with the right attitude," says Carter. "We haven't found it easy.

It has taken us years to get it right.

But the Welsh Assembly teams are incredibly insightful.

They understand the food business and your needs.

We found it so exciting to be part of their New York exhibition.

They organised functions, had Welsh companies on the radio and promoted Wales as a serious operator on the international stage."

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