Israel Active

Belarus' Center of Banking Technologies (BCBT) and the Israeli consulting company Integrity will develop cooperation and exchange experience.

Recent article in The Atlantic entitled “Selling the Desert's Water-Conservation Lessons to the Rest of the World” It describes the reasons for the success of Israel’s Netafim, with its irrigation system that can grow plants with much less water.

If you wondered where Facebook gets its income from, one of the answers is Israel’s Bidalgo. As one of the few official Facebook Marketing Partners in Israel, Bidalgo expects as much as $100 million in revenues in 2015 from selling hundreds of millions of dollars-worth of ads.

Just 18 months after Israel's Cofix upset the coffee market with its NIS 5 coffee and snacks, the company has launched “Super Cofix” – a discount store where everything is NIS 5 (around $1.3) or less. No need to buy in bulk and then throw away excess food that’s gone bad.

Investing in startups used to be only available for high net-worth individuals. Now, Israel’s ExitValley has designed an investing platform that caters for any Israeli startup to utilize its quota of 35 “regular” investors who wish to invest small sums - usually NIS 1,000 (around $260).

Two more Israeli companies have announced new factories in the US. Following Bram Plastics , kitchen counter maker Caesarstone has opened its first factory in Richmond Hill, Georgia. And Israeli fabric maker Avgol has opened a new production line in Mocksville, North Carolina.

Visa Europe has opened a start-up center in Tel Aviv, taking at least 20 ideas through its 100-day innovation program. Visa will bring the most commercially viable to market. Zooz, Prontoly, Payitsimple and MyCheck have already entered the Visa Europe Collab pipeline.

The Central Bureau of Statistics reported that Israel’s unemployment rate fell from 5.2% in March to a historic low of 4.9% in April. The number employed rose 1.3% to 3,636,000. Participation in the labor force also rose - from 60.2% in March to 60.9% in April.

Moody’s chief economist Dr Mark Zandi reckons that Israel has one of the world’s best economies. It’s fiscal situation is better than ever, the debt-to-GDP ratio is low and continues to fall, its economy has been growing for 15 straight years, and there's almost no unemployment.

According to the Greek Energy Forum, Israel’s potential source of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) would be of major benefit to Europe. It could also have some diplomatic benefits.