Israel Active

The annual Go4Europe conference brings 1000 Israelis and Europeans together to present Israeli technologies to the European market, promote investment and establish strategic alliances in Europe. Since 2005, 88 Israeli companies have gone public in Europe – more than in the USA.

Low-cost airline easyJet has started a twice-weekly service between Ben Gurion and Manchester, England on Mondays and Thursdays. It also starts its twice-daily flights on Mondays and Thursdays between Tel Aviv and Luton, adding to the current daily flights between those two cities.

Drip irrigation pioneer Netafim (worth $900 million) is now European-owned. Also, US giant Citigroup has bought Ness Technologies (building Barclays Israeli R&D centre) for $307 million. Finally Advasense’s image technology was too good for US company Pixim to resist. Click highlighted words for info. Israel’s economy still on the up. The latest report from the Bank of Israel shows that growth is continuing.

Merrill Lynch raised its 2012 GDP growth forecast for Israel from 2.7% to 2.9%, citing recent improvement in the global economy and resilience of the domestic economy in the first half of the year.

Exports between the two countries was $36.9 billion in 2011 – up from the 2007 pre-economic crisis high of $33.8 billion. Israel is one of America’s top 25 largest export markets (top 10 by capita). The two countries held a high-level economic policy meeting in Washington.

144 Israeli high-tech companies raised $488 million from Israeli and foreign venture capital funds in the third quarter of 2012; 8% more that $453 million raised in the preceding quarter.

This neat application shows dynamically the location of thousands of Israel’s innovative companies.

When Israelis say you have “chutzpah”, they mean you know what you want and will go for it. They mean you have great tenacity and will do what it takes to achieve goals that others can’t even dream of. It’s what makes Israelis so strong at entrepreneurship.

Israel and the USA signed a mutual recognition agreement that will ease burdens on US and Israeli companies seeking to export telecommunications products to each other. E.g. product tests performed in one country will satisfy the regulations of the other. This should lower prices and boost exports.

The European Parliament has approved the Agreement on Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial Products with Israel. Technical trade barriers will now be removed, bringing thousands of Israel’s life-saving medications to the continent.