Israel Active

Although Indonesia is the largest Muslim country and has no official diplomatic relations, annual trade with Israel is around $400-500 million, almost 88 percent of which is Indonesian exports. Indonesia exports commodities to Israel while Israel sends back mostly high-tech products.

International credit rating agency Standard & Poor's affirmed its 'A+/A-1' long- and short-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings on the State of Israel, with a stable outlook. The forthcoming elections are not expected to undermine prudent public finances and government debt control.

Tel Aviv is the third best place in the world for technology business, according to a new report by property consultants Savills. The scores were measured according to five metrics: business environment, tech environment, quality of life, talent pool and property affordability.

Israeli exports to China have risen from $1 billion in 2010 to over $3 billion last year. Half are electronic components, chemicals, or medical products. But the biggest rise was IT services.

In 2014, trade between Japan and Israel rose by 9.3% to $1.75 billion and there has been a recent surge in Japanese investments in Israel in a variety of hi-tech fields. (Writer Ohad Cohen heads Israel’s foreign commercial service, with 40 trade offices operating in more than 50 countries.)

UK telecom giant Talk Talk has selected LiveEngage from Israel’s LivePerson to deliver its new chat service for customers requiring fast, on-line, real-time assistance.

The Wall St Journal features a story about an Israeli startup that switched its main product when its co-founder built a new mobile application in eight weeks.

Yissum, the technology transfer company of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, founded nine new companies in 2014 on the basis of technology originating at the university.

More Israeli companies had new listings on the London Stock Exchange in 2014 than from any country outside of the UK itself. Two (Matomy Media and Barak Capital) floated on the main market and seven more on the AIM secondary market.

The percentage of unemployed Israelis aged 15 and over in the workforce fell to 5.6% in January, from 5.7% in December. The unemployed rate between ages 25-64 fell to 4.8% in a growing workforce. More people are now employed in full time jobs.