Israel Active

The UK Economist magazine ranked Israel the fourth best performing economy of the top 34 countries in the OECD. It was based on five macroeconomic indicators - GDP growth, annual inflation, inflation breadth, share prices, and government debt.

Israel’s AIR has conducted the first forward horizontal test flight of its AIR ONE prototype electric flying vehicle (see previously). It follows July’s successful hover test. The latest test carried 150kg simulating the weight of passengers in addition to the plane’s 1,100kg unladen weight.

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Alibaba founder Jack Ma has been recently seen several times in Israel. He has interests in over two dozen Israeli startups including Twiggle, Infinity Augmented Reality, Lumus and ThetaRay.

. The recent $196.5 million funding round in US-Israeli cyber startup Snyk (see previously) was led by the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), the sovereign wealth fund of a Gulf country with which Israel has no diplomatic relations.

The Israeli American Council (IAC) National Summit (Jan 19-21) in Austin Texas is celebrating “Israel. Together”. It also marks Israel’s 75th Birthday, and will host the Israel America Business Playground, bringing together Israeli and American business leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators.

Jerusalem is set to extend fast train services to and from Tel Aviv into the capital with plans to deliver two more stations in central Jerusalem. They will extend the link from Jerusalem’s Navon station firstly to King George Street and then finally on to the Khan Theater.

The Israel Innovation Authority is investing NIS 150 million in three new tech consortiums. Integrated silicon photonics (4 companies already selected), metamaterials and meta-surfaces (8 companies), and black soldier fly farming for animal feeds and breaking down organic waste.

Israir Airlines will start operating five flights a week from Israel to Istanbul starting this Monday, after 15 years in which Israeli airlines did not fly to Turkiye. Istanbul is one of the most attractive destinations among Israelis who enjoy the short flight, hotels, entertainment, and shops.  

Home-building in Israel jumped by 15.6% between Oct 2021 and Sep 2022, with over 70,000 housing starts recorded – the highest for four years. 50,000 apartments were completed in the same period, up 4% on the previous year.