THE Welsh Government has blocked a request to reveal letters and emails between Gwent's richest man and the first minister.

Officials said to reveal the correspondence between Celtic Manor-owner Sir Terry Matthews and Carwyn Jones could harm the economy of South East Wales.

The BBC, which made a request under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, has asked for the decision to be reviewed.

It wanted to see letters and emails sent during the autumn when there was widespread speculation Mr Jones was about to reshuffle his cabinet and possibly move Edwina Hart, business minister.

Mr Jones eventually did reshuffle his cabinet and kept Ms Hart in post.

The Welsh Government had also provided £2.8 million of funding for Sir Terry's Alacrity Foundation graduate training scheme.

In response to the FOI request a Welsh Government official told the broadcaster that it had the information of the type requested.

But the response concluded the information should be withheld.

The official said the correspondence would "be likely to harm the economy of the South East region of Wales".

"When companies or individual business leaders make unsolicited communications with the Welsh Government, there is the expectation that this information will be treated with confidence," it reads.

"If such information were released it could impair our working relationship with companies or business leaders.

"The knock on effect of this could be that in the future, businesses would likely be reluctant to work with us, which could have detrimental effect to the economy of Wales."

The response adds: "Disclosure of such information.... is likely to prejudice the potential investment because it may reveal information which relates to the company's core business to their competitors."