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Wales lost their EuroHockey Championship II final to Scotland, but both teams have reached the A Division.
Clements says doing so has been a "challenge" on a limited budget, but feels it will bring benefits.
"I'm over the moon for the players and staff. It's a huge achievement," Clements told BBC Wales Sport.
"It puts us on a different level and exposes us to a different level of competition that will hopefully drive performances up."
The Wales women's side narrowly missed promotion to the top tier, following their 2-1 defeat by Russia in Friday's EuroHockey Championship semi-final.
But Clements was pleased with their performances and with the number of fans who came to watch the Cardiff tournament.
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"I'm a big believer in the inspiration our athletes and staff provide as role models," he said.
"The buzz around the venue here in Cardiff has been huge and so is the reception the guys have had.
"Everyone's buzzing about the sport at the moment and I really feel that'll transcend into people picking up a stick for the first time."
The Wales men will join the likes of Germany, England and the Netherlands in the EuroHockey A Division in 2019.
But before that both the men and women's teams hope to qualify for the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
Clements says he hopes competing at these big tournaments will help earn more Welsh players call-ups for Great Britain.
"We really want to push the boundaries and not have a glass ceiling to where we want to get to," he said.
"The better we perform as a group, the more chance we've got of players progressing into the GB squads.
"Ultimately if we can develop some Olympians that would be utopia."

They show emissions in 2015 were 41% below the levels for 1990, a benchmark against which targets are set.
Last year saw a record reduction of 45.8% which not only met the annual target but exceeded a medium-term aim to reduce emissions by 42% by 2020.
It means total emissions since 2014 are 1.8% higher.
The statistics appear to support claims from environmental groups that the 2020 target was only met because of an unseasonably mild winter.
The latest statistics will be a disappointment to ministers who have positioned Scotland as a world leader in tackling climate change.
Earlier this year, Scotland's Environment Secretary Roseanna Cunningham announced a new target to reduce emissions by 50% by 2020.
She also announced plans to decarbonise the electricity sector and increase the amount of woodland to offset carbon.
The figures for all years are adjusted annually to reflect the increased understanding of greenhouse gas emissions.
They are also adjusted to reflect Scotland's participation in the complex EU-wide Emissions Trading Scheme.
A second set of figures, on source emissions, shows a fall of 3% since 2014.
Until last year, the annual target had been missed on four consecutive years.
When it comes to source emissions, transport has overtaken energy supply as the biggest contributor.
This is attributed to a decrease in the amount of coal being burnt at the Longannet Power Station.
There has also been a shift in reliance on nuclear power, which represents 34.7% of demand compared with 25.7% in 2007.
The largest shift is in forestry which has seen a significant fall in the amount of carbon soaked up by trees.
A shortage of planting around the 1980s means there are more trees being felled annually than are reaching maturity.
But Ms Cunningham said Scotland remained "comfortably on track" to meet its 2020 target.
She added: "The statistics also show that we continue to outperform the UK as a whole, with our efforts to drive forward transformative change in our energy system clearly paying off.
"We always knew meeting our ambitious targets would be tough and that they bring a number of challenges, as well as opportunities.
"Our draft Climate Change Plan sets out a package of measures across transport, heat, electricity generation and energy efficiency which will help us go further."
Jim Densham, from Stop Climate Chaos Scotland, said the figures showed real progress was being made towards securing a "clean energy revolution".
"To hit future climate change targets we now need to build on the early successes to supercharge action on key areas," he said.
"These include homes, farming and particularly transport, which is for the first time the largest source of emissions.
"Transport pollution has been stubbornly high for decades and we need significant action to catch up with other nations such as India and Norway which are planning to end the sale of fossil fuel cars by 2030."
Hockey Wales head of performance Dan Clements believes the men's promotion to Europe's top tier will help transform the sport in Wales.
[NEXT_CONCEPT]
Greenhouse gas emissions in Scotland have risen but the statutory target for 2015 has been met, according to the latest figures.