Work on the £84m International Convention Centre Wales at the Celtic Manor Resort is continuing apace, with a soft opening planned for July this year.

The building, which is being developed by a joint venture partnership between Welsh Government and Celtic Manor, will accommodate up to 5,000 delegates within a 26,000 square metre footprint, making it the largest centre of its kind in Wales and south west England.

An ICC Wales spokesman said: "2019 is an exciting year for Wales with the launch of the new ICC Wales and we are on schedule for a soft opening and staging internal events from July.

"A full diary of events will follow later in the summer with the first client events taking place in September 2019.

"With more than £2m of business already on the books, a sum which will be worth many times more to the local economy, ICC Wales is going to be a real game-changer for this region, and we cannot wait to welcome our first conference delegates through the doors this summer."

Celtic Manor Resort and ICC Wales chief executive Ian Edwards said: “ICC Wales will be a real game-changer for Wales and is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the whole country to benefit from business tourism.

“The events industry is worth about £42bn to the UK economy. That is a huge sum and Wales’ share of that right now is only about 1.5 per cent purely because we don’t have the facility or the infrastructure. ICC Wales will change that."