Trade pact with Israel will depend on industry views
Financial Express | 12 February 2025
Trade pact with Israel will depend on industry views
A free trade agreement between India and Israel would hinge on recommendations to be made by their respective industries after the ongoing interactions, Israel’s minister of economy and industry Nir Barkat said on Tuesday.
As part of a greater business engagement, an Israeli delegation of 130 business leaders is in India for meetings with their Indian counterparts. It is the biggest business delegation that has visited any country and is being led by the Isreali minister. He also invited a similar Indian delegation to visit Israel to continue with the engagement.
Meanwhile, commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal said that both countries should aim to grow bilateral trade 10 times from the current levels in the next 12-13 years. India-Israel trade stands at $6.5 billion. “Both of us feel that it is suboptimal and we do not want to see very low aspirations. I think that we can easily look at 10x growth in our bilateral trade coupled with investments on both sides happening in the next 12-13 years or so,” Goyal said.
Barkat said that though the industry in Israel is known for working on cutting-edge technologies, India can provide scale. “Israel is not looking at India as a market but as a hub not only for Asia but other parts of the world,” he said.
“We have huge potential to collaborate in deep tech, fintech, agri tech, cyber security, defence, artificial intelligence, water conservation and renewable energy. We are also looking at co-creating and co innovating the future and I have offered to Israeli companies to partner with India to leverage the support provided by Anushandhan National Reserch Foundation,” Goyal said.
The Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) provides high-level strategic directions for research, innovation, and entrepreneurship in the fields of natural sciences, including mathematical sciences, engineering and technology, environmental and earth sciences, health and agriculture, and scientific and technological interfaces of humanities and social sciences.
On the India-Middle East- Europe Corridor (IMEC), Barkat said Israel has started work on the link that will pass through its territory and would need to expand its existing agreement with the Arab neighbours — the Abraham Accord — to link those nodes at their end.
“We have a team in Israel starting the work on the elements from Beckenham to Haifa and planning it as part of the bigger value chain and the supply chain. I think each country separately is now preparing its part ….we certainly are,” Barkat said.
IMEC was announced at the G-20 Summit in New Delhi in 2023.
