Industry Ministry to set up NIS 3 billion small business fund
The fund aims to help small and mid-sized Israeli enterprises alleviate the credit crunch caused by the debt crisis in Europe and global economic slowdown
Israel’s new newspaper – Shimon Post
Israel's 88 year-young President Shimon Peres has recently become the publisher of an online daily named Shimon Post. The daily edition has a pretty wide distribution and includes articles published on the world's leading media outlets on economics, politics and policy.
Now Vodafone discovers Israel
UK mobile phone giant Vodafone’s venture capital arm has made its first ever investment in Israel and first ever investment in a clean-tech company. CellEra Inc develops platinum free fuel cell technology for storing and converting energy at a significantly lower cost than technologies available on the market.
Richard Branson in Israel
The chairman of Britain’s Virgin group attended the Bezeq Expo Communications conference. He was marketing his sub-orbital space trips, due to start next year.
Inflation rate falls
There was a welcome 0.3% fall in Israel’s Consumer Price Index to an annual 3.4%.
Economy improves
The reason I didn’t publicise last month’s announcement that Israel’s 2nd quarter GDP growth was a healthy 3.2% was because I didn’t trust the early figures. That will teach me – the Central Bureau of Statistics has more up-to-date information and revised up growth for the quarter to 3.4%.
More natural gas
Estimates are that the new gas strata discovered in Tamar's deep sands contains 0.5-1.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The discovery also implies that there is more gas in the larger Leviathan field.
Drilling at Leviathan 3 completed
An important milestone was reached in Israel’s economic plans when Nobel Energy informed its partners that exploratory drilling of the well had been completed and natural gas had been discovered. The expectations are for reserves of 19-20 TCF, compared with a current estimate of 16 TCF.
Global law firm to open Israel office
International law firm Greenberg Traurig will open an office in Tel Aviv next month. The office is the first international full-time legal office of its kind in Israel.
Israel and Brazil expand biofuel collaboration
Israel’s Evogene and Brazil’s SLC Agricola are focused on developing advanced castor seed displaying high oil yield under rain-fed conditions and suitable for sustainable and commercial production in Brazil. Bio-diesel produced from the Evogene's castor varieties will cost around $50 per barrel and is expected to substantially reduce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions by over 75%