Israel for focus on skill-based areas in agreement

Israel is focusing on skill-based areas as part of its upcoming comprehensive economic cooperation agreement (CECA) with India.

Israeli believes it has an edge in human resources, which has gone into developing its research and development skills, an advantage the Indian companies can use.

The agreement, on the lines of a CECA India signed with Singapore recently, is expected to materialise within a year. A joint study group, working on areas of cooperation, is meeting next month to finalise the nature of "preferential treatment" in areas like trade in goods, services, research & development (R&D) and investments.

"The treaty will also aid in doubling the trade between the two countries to about $5 billion by 2008", said Israeli Ambassador David Danieli

"Three areas in which we have a niche are medical equipment, auto spares and components and water management. These are the areas in which we can successfully market our technologies in India and boost trade", Danieli said.

"As Israeli economy looks eastward, more investment shall come from our companies. We just have to provide an organisational and legal framework", he added.

Israeli economy, Danieli said, was characterised by small and medium companies with a heavy tilt towards R&D and a high dependence on overseas markets.

"I can reasonably expect Indian companies to invest in information technology, software etc. They also stand to benefit from the Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) Israel has with EU and North America", said Danieli.

The two countries are also creating Bilateral Research & Development Fund to help entrepreneurs. Each side will initially contribute $1 million for the corpus.

The system is expected to be in place by April. This will be first such fund for India while Israel has a similar arrangement with eight other countries.