Israel Active

An 8.1% drop in the prices of fresh vegetables means that Israel’s annual inflation is now running at 1.9%, just below the middle of the government’s target.

Naftali Bennett was the first Israeli minister to visit Indonesia for 13 years when he attended the World Trade Organization conference in Bali. He made a speech to 157 economic leaders and signed a trade agreement designed to inject a trillion dollars into the world economy.

A delegation of advertising and marketing executives from Britain came to Israel to encourage tech partnerships between the two countries. They were shown Israeli cutting-edge technologies in the areas of visual search and exposure, social media, interactive video platforms, big data, real-time analytics, mobile advertising, content marketing and augmented reality.

Germany’s healthcare corporations Merck Serono has allotted 10 million Euros to an incubator for new Israeli companies at its Inter-Lab R&D center in Yavne. The latest startups to join are Chanbio (MS antibody treatment) and Metabomed (cancer metabolism).

In just 4 years time, Milk & Honey, Israel's first distillery will have the world's first commercial Israeli single malt whiskey available in stores. For $79 you can be guaranteed a bottle of the first batch to be available in Dec 2017. Le Hayim (“to life”).

A new independent study shows that over 200 Israeli-founded businesses contributed $6 billion in direct revenue and over 6,600 jobs in Massachusetts in 2012.

Israel Airports Authority is to construct a 17,000 square meter “fourth arm” to Terminal 3 at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport to cater for up to 20 million passengers. Its runways will also be upgraded to allow for double the current aircraft traffic.

(Thanks to Uri) Israeli firms are finding billions of new middle-class customers in the far-east superpower for Israel’s advanced medical and hi-tech products. Weekly flights between Tel Aviv and Beijing have just been increased from three to fourteen to cater for the increased business demand.

Qoros Auto, the joint car venture of Israel Corporation and China’s Chery Automobile, will have four ranges of cars to accompany the Qoros 3 - the company's first model. The commercial launch is scheduled for later this year.

"Israel's output growth remains relatively strong, unemployment is at historically low levels, its high-tech sector continues to attract international admiration, and new off-shore gas fields have come on stream," The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said in the executive summary of its 2013 Israel Economic Survey.