Montgomeryshire AM Russell George has described comments from Lee Waters AM about Wales' economy as "deeply concerning".

Speaking to at a lunch in The Clink restaurant at Cardiff Prison, Deputy Minister for Economy & Transport Mr Waters said the government was "making it up as they go along" on the economy, although he later clarified his comment as highlighting the Government's "need to experiment, learn and scale".

"For 20 years we’ve pretended we know what we’re doing on the economy – and the truth is we don’t really know what we’re doing on the economy. Nobody knows what they’re doing on the economy," he said in comments reported in the Western Mail.

"Everybody is making it up as we go along – and let’s just be honest about that. We’ve thrown all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way, and we’ve achieved static GDP over 20 years.

"The levels of GVA per head now are the same they were in 1999. And that’s not from a lack of trying. There’s no failure on the part of ministers and civil servants.

"But it’s an approach that has its limits for Wales and we need to try a different approach."

Mr Waters added that any alternative approach would include the need to experiment, and if needed to fail, and say ‘that’s OK’: “We learn from that failure, and iterate and move on,” he said.

Gross Value Added (GVA) measures the value of the output of the economy generated in a specific geographic area. It includes the production of all goods and services but does not make any allowance for capital used up.

The most recent figure for Gross Value Added per head for Wales is £18,002 which is 71.0 per cent of the UK average; the lowest of any other UK region or country.

In response Mr George accused the Deputy Minister of being blasé about what he describes as the "sorry state of our nation’s economy."

"Wales has been led by Welsh Labour for over twenty years and in that time we’ve seen failure after failure, and now Labour Ministers are confirming that they knew this all along," he said.

"On the same day that Welsh Conservative leader Paul Davies questioned the First Minister over the government’s handling of tax payers’ money, we reflect on a catalogue of serious financial problems for Wales.

"As a result of the Labour Government ‘making it up as it goes along,’ earnings in Wales are the lowest in the UK; regional inequality is a national embarrassment and Wales has the slowest growing economy in the UK, with little progress made over the past 17 years.

"Welsh Conservatives have a clear plan for the future of Wales, and if this Government doesn’t know what it’s doing, it should make way for one that does," he added.

A Plaid Cymru spokesperson said: “It is quite remarkable that the Welsh Government’s own deputy economy minister has admitted that Labour hasn’t known what it’s doing on the economy for the past 20 years.

"While Lee Waters may find it amusing, we certainly don’t. Stalling growth, increasing child poverty, and life expectancy in decline are no laughing matter."