The fastest growing economy in the world...

• That's what Cymru was in the early years of the twentieth century.

• But almost all that profit went out of the country,

• and by the 1980s and Thatcher's attack on the mines, we were on our knees.

And with the big industries gone (coal in the south, slate in the north), we've had to watch successive governments who think that the number of jobs is what matters, not their quality.

That's what the culture of government bribes (sorry, 'incentives') to international companies has brought us. Short term thinking, and short term jobs. Look at the effect that giant supermarkets like Tesco and Asda have - they crush local competition, they force exclusivity clauses on suppliers, they send their profits out of the local area and they employ supply companies from out of the local area.

Studies in America have shown that local shops keep over 60% of their profits in the local economy, but Wal-Mart keeps a pitiful 14%!

And what happens when a big company comes in, puts local competitors out of business, employs at a lower salary level (apart from the senior management, who are almost never local) and then decides that when the incentives are over, it makes business sense for them to leave?

That's when you get job losses on a scale that can shatter communities.

At Cymuned, we recognise the importance of small, local businesses. We're working towards forming a local business network in Pwllheli at the moment, to withstand the damaging impact of the new Asda that is being brought to the town. Once you organise, you can change things - stickers for participating businesses, badges and discounts for shoppers, free email updates with details about the latest local bargains, free promotional websites - it's do-able.

We also want to see more investment in micro-businesses and local entrepreneurs, and more inventive use of the Internet for small Welsh companies - the more different businesses make up a local economy, the stronger it is when the hard times hit. Think of it like this: chop a man's leg off, and he's got problems. Chop one of a centipede's legs off, and it might not even notice.

Sign up to get our free weekly newsletter for a start, and then take the step to becoming a full member, and get our monthly newsletter through the post. That will make sure you hear about everything that's going on, and it will help us keep working at promoting local businesses throughout the country.

If you want to go a step further, get in touch, and we'll give you direct, practical advice and support to set up a local business campaign group in your own community. We'll help provide materials (including websites) and we'll give presentations to private or public meetings.

If we work together, we can build a stronger, fairer and more local economy.

Click here to get the ball rolling.

I want to get involved! (click here to become a member)